The familiar saying, "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions", should still prick our consciences to examine the route we are traveling.
Jesus promised that His road would not be an easy one. Judging by the degree of mortification and denial of self that many saints practised
in their sanctification, we may feel that perfection is far beyond the reach of our weak wills.
Perfection simply is Jesus. He is the perfect example we must follow: He Alone is the Way.
Mary, His Beloved Mother, made holy and perfect by the Holy Spirit, leads us directly to her Son, the Lord,
the only Son of God the Father.
To be 'perfect' is to become a mirror image of that perfection, Jesus Christ, our Lord, the Only Son of the Living God.
"Let this all be said only for the purpose of showing that the avoidance of purgatory
is not such an impossible task, not the reward for such exceptional sanctity, that the ordinary
faithful dare not hope for it. The holy submission to the sorrows of life, the voluntary
acceptance of death and its pains, the little acts of self-sacrifice, acts of charity which
cover a multitue of sins, the use of the Church's power in indulgences may well enable many
of the faithful whose names on earth will never be mentioned in the list of Saints, and who
were reputed to be but humble folk in spiritual things, to pass from death straight to God.
One may hope that especially amongst the poor, who have religiously and patiently borne years
of neglect and distress, especially amongst those to whom God gave the grace of a long, painful
illness to which they lovingly and meekly submitted, there are many indeed who after death
have no more debt to pay. Most priests have known instances of simple people who have borne the
long-drawn out and agonizing pains of cancer almost without a murmur or a word of irritation,
but in continual, affectionate and pitiful prayer and utterance of the Holy Name. In such cases
it may well be doubted that God should continue their pains after death and delay their eternal reward."
Arendzen, J.P. Purgatory and Heaven, p.34.
