At the expressed desire of the Directors of the Bulletin "Notre Dame de la Bonne Mort," this pamphlet is published with all the reservations ordered by the Church in the decree of Urban VIII, and as a purely historical document. It was sent to that periodical by a zealous and devout missionary and is a pious document based on alleged conversations between a nun and a soul in Purgatory. No one can deny off-hand the possibility, or in fact, the reality of such apparitions of souls in Purgatory to persons still living. Such apparitions are not rare and there are many accounts of them. They are of frequent occurrence in the lives of the Saints. We will quote only one example from the life of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque. She says: "When I was praying before the Blessed Sacrament on the feast of Corpus Christi, a person enveloped in fire suddenly stood before me. From the pitiable state the soul was in, I knew it was in Purgatory and I wept bitterly. This soul told me it was that of a Benedictine, who had once heard my confession and ordered me to go to Holy Communion. As a reward for this, God permitted him to ask me to help him in his sufferings. "He asked me to apply to him all I should do or suffer for a period of three months. Having obtained my superior's leave, I did what he asked. He told me that the greatest cause of his sufferings was that in life he had preferred his own interests to those of God, in that he had been too attached to his good reputation. His second defect was lack of charity to his brethren. The third was his all too natural attachment to creatures. It would be difficult for me to describe what I had to endure during those three months. He never left me and seeing him, as it were on fire and in such terrible pain, I could do nothing but groan and weep almost incessantly. My superior, being touched with compassion, told me to do hard penances, particularly to take the discipline . . . After the three months I saw the soul radiant with happiness, joy, and glory. He was about to enjoy eternal happiness, and in thanking me he said he would protect me when with God." The testimony of theologians and of historical documents are not less numerous or convincing, but let it suffice for us to mention Canon Ribet's Divine Mysticism, (Vol. II, Ch. VIII) and the other outstanding works of this master of mystical theology.

The kindness of God provides us with all the grace and knowledge we need to arrive at that eternal Beatitude to which he calls each one of us. Occasionally, he even bestows extraordinary apprehensions on certain holy mystics, thereby inspiriting us to run in the paths of his goodness toward our perfect fulfillment . . .

PURGATORY occupies an important place in our holy religion : it forms one of the principal parts of the work of Jesus Christ, and plays an essential role in the economy of the salvation of man. What then is the work which we, members of the Church, have to do for the souls in Purgatory ? We have to alleviate their sufferings. God has placed in our hands the key of this mysterious prison : it is prayer for the dead, devotion to the souls in Purgatory.

After a week of hearing ghostly noises, a man is visited in his home by the spirit of his mother, dead for three decades. She reproaches him for his dissolute life and begs him to have Masses said in her name. Then she lays her hand on his sleeve, leaving an indelible burn mark, and departs... A Lutheran minister, no believer in Purgatory, is the puzzled recipient of repeated visitations from "demons" who come to him seeking prayer, consolation, and refuge in his little German church. But pity for the poor spirits overcomes the man's skepticism, and he marvels at what kind of departed souls could belong to Christ and yet suffer still... Hungry Souls recounts these stories and many others trustworthy, Church-verified accounts of earthly visitations from the dead in Purgatory. Accompanying these accounts are images from the "Museum of Purgatory" in Rome, which contains relics of encounters with the Holy Souls, including numerous evidences of hand prints burned into clothing and books; burn marks that cannot be explained by natural means or duplicated by artificial ones. Riveting!

What role did images play in the mania for indulgences during the decades prior to the Protestant Reformation? Rubrics, Images and Indulgences in Late Medieval Netherlandish Manuscripts considers how indulgences (the remission of time in Purgatory) were used to market certain images. Conversely, images helped to spread indulgences, such as those attached to the Virgin in sole and the Mass of St Gregory. Images also began depicting the effects of indulgences: souls escaping Purgatory. Drawing on numerous unpublished sources, Kathryn M. Rudy demonstrates how rubrics modified behaviour and expectations around image-centred devotion. Her work is the first to analyse systematically the way that indulgences and images interacted – indeed, shaped each other – prior to the Reformation.