A providential happening during WWII

During WWII my dad was in the Australian army.  He caught a military boat from the Eastern side of Australia to Fremantle, Western Australia. He was in Fremantle for about three days and was supposed to catch another military boat which was going to sail up towards Japan. My dad and some other soldiers missed the boat by about half an hour. They were put into the local jail for about two weeks until the next military boat was due. (The jailing was a punishment given to my dad and the other soldiers by the Australian army for missing the boat.)  Missing the boat was actually providential for my dad and the other soldiers.  The boat that he was supposed to have sailed in, was torpedoed by the Japanese and sank to the bottom of the ocean.

Many things in life look as though, they are bad for us, when in truth they are actually good  for us, however it might not be as apparent as it was in my father’s case.

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Parents go to jail for using homeopathy to teat their daughter’s eczema and for refusing other medical help when that was failing. (The child died).

On the news yesterday there was an item about a Sydney husband and wife who have just been sentenced to jail for several years each. What are they going to jail for?  Apparently they are going to jail for making a big mistake and for the husband’s stubborn refusal to obtain medical help for their daughter. Their baby daughter developed eczema and they treated the child with homeopathy. This was clearly failing, but the couple did not seek medical help. Eventually the child died. Doctors say that they could have saved the child. The judge told the mother has badly she had “failed” in her duty as a  mother. I think this means that she did not talk her husband out of his way of dealing with the child’s illness. We have abortions in our hospitals. That is murder of the unborn.  I do not see many abortionists going to jail.

The Plight of the Holy Souls in Purgatory

Try the following imagination exercise to help you to imagine the plight of the Holy Souls in Purgatory.  (It won’t be sufficient, but it will be useful).  I have taken these examples from real life scenarios involving relatives. Put yourself in the following scene: you are over eighty years old and live by yourself in a small house in a retirement village.  You have a fall and break your hip and lay in agonising pain on the floor for three days, unable to reach the telephone and call for help. You have no food and drink for three days and there are other problems. (Use your imagination to fill in the gaps here).  You cannot be heard when you call for help and are terrified that no one will find you and you will die there all alone. Three days later someone notices that you are not around and goes to investigate and rescues you. The Holy Souls are much worse off than that and are waiting for your prayers and sacrifices to rescue them, relieve their pain and deliver them from Purgatory.

Next example:  you are in jail for over a year and a half, but receive only two visitors (very close family members), but other relatives don’t know that you are in there, because it has been covered up due to family shame and your friends don’t want to know you anymore.  Finally two relatives learn of this and rescue you for the last six months of your jail term by sending letters and photographs to cheer you up.  (You are helped by this). It is not possible for these two relatives to visit you because the jail is a long distance from where they live, but they do what they can to help you.

The Holy Souls are in a jail like that waiting to hear from you (receive your prayers and sacrifices) to alleviate their pain and suffering and deliver them from Purgatory so that they can enter heaven), however unlike the jail that the relative was in, their jail does not have good meals, a TV set for good behaviour and a library and a chapel with a statue of Mary and Jesus in it, a reflection garden and a Catholic chaplain to help.  The Holy Souls are in a terrible place with no comforts. 

The powerful intercession of the Holy Souls in Purgatory for their benefactors