The Holy Soul who begged charity from a tender young girl on the Feast of All Saints

In Germany, in the course of the 1600s, there was a tender young girl of singular holiness.  On the Feast of All Saints the pious girl suddenly saw before her an apparition of a woman of her acquaintance who had died some time before. The woman was dressed entirely in white, with a white veil and from her hands dangled a rosary that signified her devotion to the Mother of God. The woman was a Holy Soul in need. She begged a certain charity of the pious girl - she told her of a vow she had made to have three Masses celebrated at the altar of Our Lady but she had not been true to her pledge and the Masses had not been offered - and now this omission meant her pains in Purgatory were intensified.

The Holy Soul implored the pious girl to request the Masses and pay the necessary stipends. The pious girl gladly agreed, and after the three Masses had been offered, the Holy Soul appeared again and told her how greatly she appreciated it. The Holy Soul and the pious girl became close friends, and they became inseparable companions in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament. The deceased told her young friend that she was in pain because she was not yet fit to behold the Face of God, and that her precise torture was privation of God. The girl, however, was awe-struck by the Holy Soul's reverence and the profound homage she paid the Blessed Sacrament. Once when Mass was being offered, during the consecration, the Holy Soul's face glowed so gorgeously that the pious girl was astounded by her beauty.

The pious girl offered much prayer for her friend in Purgatory, and had Masses said for her, but the soul stayed in her searing station. Some years later on December 3, the pious girl went to receive Holy Communion and found that the Holy Soul had joined her at the altar rail. Five days later on December 8, the Holy Soul  returned and was ravishingly radiant. Then on December 10, while the young girl assisted at Mass, the Holy Soul appeared even more brilliant. She knelt with extraordinary reverence before the Blessed Sacrament. The Holy Soul was about to ascend into Heaven, but first she thanked the pious girl. When she had rendered profuse thanks to the girl for her generous good works on her behalf and her prayers, the Holy Soul was taken by her Guardian Angel to Paradise and joined the company of All Saints.

Father Juan Eusebio Nieremberg

The entirety of the month of November is dedicated to the Holy Souls. I had been looking for an account from the lives of the Saints where on All Saints' Day a Holy Soul reached out and asked a pious person to do something that they had neglected to do and I found it in the pages of Father Schouppe's Purgatory. I do not know the name of "the pious girl", only that she gave an account of her mystical experience to Father Juan Eusebio Nieremberg who was certain she told the truth. Father Nieremberg was a mystic, too, and in the same manner that it takes one to know one, it may often take a mystic to know a mystic. Father Nieremberg was born in Spain to German parents. He became a Jesuit and a prolific author who documented his mystical life in many works. He dipped his words in an uncommon honey and the sweetness has survived the ages. My impression is that he seems to have shared a lot of insights with Mary of Agreda.  Nieremberg may have been a casualty of modern Jesuits who do not put much store in mysticism that corroborates a traditional understanding of the Faith, and it may be that his time has not yet come, but that his mystical visions and devotional tracts will be re-discovered and be received all the better for their nectar.

The apparition of the Holy Soul took place in Treves, or modern-day Trier, Southwestern Germany. We may hope that Father Nieremberg, "the pious girl", and her friend are All Saints. You may like to read of Father Nieremberg's heroic sacrifice when he took all the pains of his spiritual daughter's Purgatory, so that she would save her soul.

Happy Feast of All Saints!