Latrobe, 1859: a Benedictine in choir dress appears daily at 11 a.m. or 2 a.m., unheeded for 77 years; seven Masses, a retreat and the Miserere asked; ends after the last Mass on Christmas Day; none of the abbey's five dead priests yet in Heaven
How it happened
- Apparitions — As in lifeThe soul is seen
What the soul wanted
- Asks for MassesOften a stated number
- Asks for prayer or other helpRosary, Stations, Office, Communion, fasting, obedience, pilgrimage, indulgences
- Thanks, or announces releaseThe soul returns to give thanks or to say it is free
- Warns, foretells or disclosesA danger, a death, a hidden sin
Evidence
- It stopped once help was givenThe visits ceased after the suffrage asked
- A contemporary inquiry or documentA canonical inquiry, a signed letter, an official report
Further reading
Read it in the books
| Book | Pages |
|---|---|
| SchouppePurgatory Illustrated by the Lives and Legends of the Saints — Fr F. X. Schouppe SJ, 1893 | p. 120 |
Page numbers refer to the edition named in the source list.
The Church’s teaching on this
- Question: Are there special days when souls are released?
- Question: When the souls appear, what do they ask for?
- Question: Do the souls appear to the living? What about “ghosts”?
- Chapter: The Place of Purgatory
- Chapter: The Witnesses’ Map of Purgatory
- Question: Is Purgatory a place?
- Chapter: The Three States of the Church and the Communion of Saints
- Question: Do the souls in Purgatory know we pray for them?
What the witnesses report on this
- Theme C: Where the souls expiate — a place, the earth, the house, the “ghost”Purgatory as a place, souls serving their Purgatory on earth, haunted houses.
- Theme E: What the souls know, and do, for the livingWho prays for them, whether they pray for us, warnings, help and gratitude.
- Theme F: The most efficacious prayers and worksThe Mass first; then prayer, alms, works of mercy, indulgences — and the traps.
- Theme H: Days and hoursAll Souls, Christmas, Easter, Our Lady's feasts, Saturdays, the moment of the Mass.
- Theme J: Discernment — soul, demon, or imaginationHow witnesses and clergy tested apparitions, and what the Church leaves free.
About the witness
19th–20th-century cases and saints1800 to the present · T4 — visions and the collections that retell them
Related, from the same witness family
- MOD-01Foligno: Foligno, 16–18 Nov 1859: Sr Teresa Gesta; moans, voice, smoke; a hand burned into the sacristy door as with a …
- MOD-03Antwerp: the soul of a banker (d. 1636) wakes a child nightly, an old man seen to the waist in old-fashioned dress; the …
- MOD-06The servant's monthly Mass: A servant pays for a monthly Mass with her last franc; a pale young man sends her to a house, where she recognises …
- MOD-08Curé of Ars: The Curé of Ars's story: a priest proposes an "exchange" at the consecration; his friend's soul rises at the elevation
- MOD-11Vienna: a lady fetches a priest with the Viaticum to an unbeliever's house; she is his dead mother; he confesses and is …
- MOD-12Marie de St-Pierre: Sr Marie de St-Pierre (Tours, 1846): the Duke of Orléans freed; "Call me Ferdinand"; she admits no supernatural …
- MOD-15Monk of Messina: The monk of Messina: for 140 years a monk steps from behind the altar at midnight asking for a Mass; a priest …
- MOD-16Malines (Sr Mary Seraphine): Sr Mary Seraphine (Malines, 1870): an invisible presence pulls her scapular, a weight presses, a voice pleads; her …