Page:Purgatory00scho.djvu/155

 account of her faithful observance of the Rule, her purity of intention, and her charity towards her sisters.

Those who in this world have received more grace, and more means of discharging their spiritual debts, will be treated with less consideration than those who have had less opportunity of making satisfaction during life.

Blessed Margaret Mary having learned the death of three persons who had died quite recently, two Religious and one Secular, began immediately to pray for the repose of their souls. It was the first day of the year. Our Lord, touched by her charity, and treating her with an ineffable familiarity, deigned to appear to her; and showing her the three souls in those fiery prisons where they were languishing, said to her, "My daughter, as New Year's gift, I give you the deliverance of one of these three souls, and I leave the choice to you. Which shall I release?" "Who am I, Lord," she replied, "to say who deserves the preference? Deign yourself to make the choice." Then our Lord delivered the Secular, saying that He felt less in seeing Religious suffer, because they had more means of expiating their sins during life.