Arnaud Dumouch, 2005, http://eschatologie.free.fr

AMELIA, IN PURGATORY UNTIL THE END OF TIME

Translation: Alain Queneville

Fatima Apparition, Portugal, 1917: Lucia requested news from the Virgin Mary about two young girls who had been learning how to weave and who ha recently died: Maria, a16 year old, and Amelia, a 19 years old: - Is Maria in Heaven? - Yes, she is. –And is Amelia? – She’ll be in Purgatory till the end of time.

I often went to see Jeanne since our first fascinating meeting on the subject of hell. I spoke to her one day about the Virgin of Fatima’s intriguing message on Amelia. I had read it as young man and I had a notion that it she was a little girl who had died at the age of 10. But Jeanne corrected me at once. “Sir, she didn’t die when she was 10 years old she died when she was 19. But that doesn’t change a thing. There are children in purgatory, lots of children.”

Surprised, I asked her how she knew this and if she often visited the beyond. She said to me: “Apparently, as a theologian, it takes you a bit of time to understand. So the Blessed Virgin is going to save to you some time while she takes me along to see with my own eyes and report to you. Don’t complain. It’s rather nice of her. ”

A little ruffled by her last comment, I swallowed my intellectual pride for the strict and exclusive reason of curiosity. I said myself that in any event Jeanne spoke with this same vigour and a no holds barred, attitude with the damned…

- Because of your visit, my traveller angel came to see me last evening and talked to me about Amelia.

- However my angel told me that, as for my discussion with Amelia, it would be necessary for him to explain a few things about her. If she’s in purgatory, it’s because she hasn’t managed to understand certain things concerning her own soul.

- I said,” She doesn’t seem to understand certain things about her soul?” Didn’t Saint Catherine of Genoa say that in theology the souls in purgatory are holy, much holier than we are, than they love so intensely and with such fervor that they can’t love anymore.

- This is very true, answered Jeanne. And yet some souls are hard headed about certain things… You’ll see… Have a little patience. Eventually I found myself near her. She lives on a sunny hill somewhat resembling her Portuguese countryside. It’s what she had created for herself. It’s a small place created in harmony from her own nostalgia. It’s a true paradise, filled with flowers and animals. She surrounded herself by a world of sheep, wolves, and mice… She can see the ocean from her domain.

A climate of utter sadness reigns over this hill… And the animals that come and go near her, are sad and forlorn. With commiseration, they gather round their mistress and try to cheer her up. But nothing seems to work.

- That all seems to me a little bit Snow White I said… the animals, the forest, and your description?

- Its exactly that. It would be said that the biblical texts are fulfilled: “The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the snake will nourish on dust. They will be evil and violence no more on my holy mountain, said Yahweh.”

I hid my dubiousness from Jeanne. I told myself such texts were only symbolic in nature and that only Jehovah witnesses’ waited for a paradise in such a literal sense. She interrupted me: “You are suppose to express all your objections. I did it with the damned. If you were chosen to hear me out me, its because these objections will be those raised by who ever hears this story.”

Jeanne’s feigned aggressiveness was truly disarming. She replied with such mischievousness that I told myself: “All right. I’ll spoil her theory yet.” So I welled on my theology: “Animals don’t have a soul. How can such a creature live on in the hereafter? Didn’t Saint Thomas Aquinas demonstrates they don’t aspire to eternal life…”

- Well…it must be that God has a place for them, HE who counts the feathers of sparrows, a place adapted to them. I saw them, quite lively and very beautiful. They remain animals. They don’t have any spiritual life but they do feel joy or sadness according to the feeling of those they surround.

- Their carnal body died, but not their being. They are “phantoms animals”, phantoms do not need more to be nourished - (no need to kill prey---). But they are quite alive and much happier than on earth. So… you thought God wouldn’t reward them, those we eat with gravy, at the table every day?”

I conceded on this point for now. I told myself that maybe I still had a lot to learn, and that some day; it would be necessary for her to tell me about the heavenly plants and animals. The last time I had heard “phantoms of animals being spoken about”, was in ethnology books on prehistoric hunters-gatherers…

- She’s a marvelous girl. We have the same type of temperament! She’s feisty and she never gives up. Just think! Unbelievable! To say she’s only 20 years older than me! Had she lived, she could have been my mother… But up there, we instantaneously became close. This biological age difference is completely foreign in the hereafter. You’re as old as your soul. I could be her great-grandmother… And then we had most beautiful and deepest conversations that led us to be best friends.

- She long for God. She has a burning and overwhelming desire for God. My visit comforted her. She is alone. Her purgatory can be summed up with one word: alone…

- So… she’s a great mystic but she’s not in paradise? How then, does one obtain salvation? This is absolutely frightening… Me, besides sleeping at night, I spend about 30% of my time in front of a television and; I don’t aspire all that much and every each moment for God. At this rate I’ll end up in hell …

I remembered this same line of questioning by Jesus’ disciples “Upon Hearing this, the disciples became very upset: “ Who therefore can be saved? « They asked. Fixating his look, Jesus said to them: “ For mankind it’s impossible, but for God everything is possible. ....”

- She wants to please God and the heavenly hosts. She wants to make herself beautiful and worthy of Him. This takes all her energy. But it’s only possible up there. One shouldn’t compare with our efforts here on earth. Up there, one can think effortlessly and at every moment of God. Here on earth, it’s impossible. It is enough to live our everyday lives with the knowledge that his coming is at hand…

- The animal poor see her well in her perpetual sadness. They can only wait in their own way in hope and near her.

- Often. She isn’t abandoned. And it is the Virgin Mary who comes to see her or who delegates her earthly mother with whom she was very close. But it can’t receive to many visitors; otherwise it would hinder her purification process…

- She told me the story of her life. She showed me all her sins. One of biggest, she committed when she was 8 years old: Her and her sister had each received a beautiful but identical doll as gifts. However she broke hers one evening. She carefully hid her doll and, waited until night, stealthily approached her sister’s bed and exchanged dolls. The following day, her little sister cried like it was the end of the world. Amelia kept up the pretence and comforted her sister by telling her: “It isn’t serious. Dad can fix it.” She never acknowledged her sin, either to her sister, or to a priest.”

I got very embarrassed. I had similar memories from my childhood and more as I got a little older … so I asked Jeanne:

“But she obviously repented from her sin. She’s been forgiven. The proof is she’s full of love.

Yes, at the time of her death she truthfully confessed and with perfect repentance directly to Christ, to the Virgin Mary, and all the Saints…they who can penetrate to the deepest recesses of the soul

But if she confessed to a priest prior to her death, would be she really still be in purgatory all the same?

- She told me yes. It is not for this sin that she’s in purgatory, it’s for a sin so hidden from her and that she yet doesn’t understand and that I really didn’t understand either. I thought she was perfect and holy; and had I been God, I would have immediately taken her with me in Heaven. (Besides she’s fun to be with. One can have fun with her! One is not bored, not even for a moment.)

- My poor Jeanne. We’ve both definitively started off on the wrong foot. I have the definite impression were going straight to purgatory, otherwise we would have understood what is wrong with her. Do you have any idea of what it is that’s is not pleasing to God?

At that moment, I had no idea…. And then, it came time for me to leave her. My angel came to get me. So I spent the rest of my time there with him telling him my own life’s story. I him made laugh a lot it with my sins.

- You are depressive, Jeanne? You drink at 87 years? That’s wrong, I said with furrowed brow. Ah yes, she said. It doesn’t show does it?

Humility

- I have a question for you. Why is she in purgatory till the end of the world? Isn’t it really after all, a bit embarrassing for God? That story about the doll is minor at best for such a severe sanction. I’ve done a lot worse in my youth. I fought with a girlfriend several times where I pummeled her mercilessly by pulling on her long blonde hair. And I’ve never confessed. I don’t even regret it, 75 years later… She acted like she was a big movie star …

- My child said my angel told me… To go to heaven, it’s not enough to love with all your heart, with all your soul, and all your might. That happens to all of those who in death don’t reject Christ. They make that choice effortlessly, fall in love with him instantaneously or conversely and just as quickly reject him … forever.

If I understood at all, it’s because of this text: ‘’Settle matters quickly with the adversary who is taking you to court. Do it while you are still with him on the way, or he may hand you over to the judge, and the judge may hand you over to the officer, and you may be thrown into prison Verily I say unto thee, Thou shall by no means come out thence, till you have paid to the last penny’’. She’s paying her debt for not confessing to her sister during her life...

My child. Do you really believe that she’d be in purgatory until the end of the time for that sin, if that is what had to be paid for? Her sister died and has been in heaven for a long time. It’s been 50 years since she’s known about the doll. Besides she had completely forgotten about it. She was totally surprised when Amelia had asked for her forgiveness, at the time of her death …

- My child: Amelia died proud. A good pride, a natural pride. She died young, in the fullness of her age. She died just like that, without suffering. So she couldn’t, without the benefit of years of experience learn, what her likes and dislikes were, about growing older, when one’s energies diminishes, and friends become rare… she didn’t learn humility …

- What? But she’s been with animals for 80 years, alone? She must have understood humility?

- Amelia needs more time. She has yet to understand the necessity for the complete surrender of the self, self to total death. It therefore becomes necessary for her to be struck with despair. But, with her temperament, it’s going to take a little more time than it did with others: She is a feisty one all right. Each time she’s at the edge of depression, she picks herself up and says, with unfailing exuberance: « My God. I love you. One day I shall be worthy of you. »

- No Jeanne, not a wreck: humble. Its necessary for her to become Christ like, reduced to a state of self-renunciation. Amelia is like a camel. And you remember what Jesus said about camels: “Yes, I say unto you, it is easier for camel to pass through the hole of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of heaven.”

We practicing Catholics understand that God is love. But I think what we find it difficult to understand is that God is love unto total self-renunciation, and his ignominious death on a cross…briefly that, from the heart of Christ, its not just blood oozing from his side (love) but blood and water (humility) …

... All this is worrisome Jeanne went on. So I asked my angel my angel what one should do to avoid five, ten or more centuries in purgatory.

He said to me: You need, to pray and ask God, for the in all humility for the strength to accept your purgatory here on earth. Humbly, because it’s useless to burden one self’s with suffering, hoping to become humble. If we succeed it unfortunately causes the reverse and makes one even prouder…do you remember the Pharisee?

Wait! You know that when God grants us our prayer, its doesn’t necessarily shorten or for that matter make things less difficult at least, psychologically… One goes directly to heaven as soon as one has shed any illusions about the self and one’s, misery. It’s a process that can only be learned through experience.

The experience of her misery right up to the absolute. And there are many ways for it:

The beautiful way was Mary’s: She was already pure and humble. But even as aware as she was of her son’s salvific mission, she was torn with the misery of His death

There is also Mary Madeleine’s way that of a sinner, who had prostituted herself and who knew very early on that she deserved nothing.

Then there’s the way of the atheist who die in despair and without any hope of salvation. This is why Jesus doesn’t reveal himself at present.

There is a way of a lengthy illness that ever so slowly drives one to self-renunciation.

But he especially told me: you shouldn’t take heaven’s mystical purgatories as sign of disgrace. Amelia just took the way of camels. And it’s not her fault. It’s fair because God’s justice is being well served. She was taken early in life. At the end of time, we shall, with all of God’s elect that is, gather in love and humility, and nobody will want to say to his brother: my way was better and quicker than yours …

Plenary indulgences, Jeanne Of course, its Amelia’s solution to her present status: «The Church takes from Christ’s infinite treasures and applies them to souls in purgatory to free them of their debt of suffering for their sins and are immediately released. »

Ever since the Virgin Mary told the world that Amelia would be in purgatory till the end of time, she’s been bombarded with countless requests and sacrifices. And as for Amelia’s “her debts of suffering” has been paid in full. And she knows. But as for her humility, nothing can be done. She is hard headed. She needs to acquire an understanding on her own…. When she finally enters heaven, she will be the patron saint for strength of character!