The Venerable Bernard Colnago Of The Society Of Jesus

A soul in Purgatory

Our celebrated historian, Joseph von Gorres, whilom Professor at the University of Munich, discusses these matters at inordinate, but not unusual, length in his classic work. Speaking of a devil who had no back, he says : " It is a curious circumstance that evil spirits should possess only a front side and lack the back side. That would appear to result from the peculiar optics of a certain grade of the lower vision, inasmuch as things project themselves only picturewise." In another place he discusses the influence of constellations upon men, and denies that the demoniacal influences of the constellations are direct, " because no star left the hand of its Creator with a demoniacal stamp. ... As every cosmic illness becomes more acute with the growing moon, so every demoniacal illness." Such doctrines are as common among our intellectual leaders as blackberries in season, but as they are not scientific, it is misleading to allow them to be taught as such. Professor Bantz, in Miinster, a State Catholic University with Faculties, lectured two years ago on " The Last Judgment, Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven." He is an authority on the subject, having published dissertations on these four last things, and his professional position consecrates his claims to be treated as a scientific light. He says, " 

With respect to the real duration of Purgatory, it lasts, according to Marina de Escobar, twenty, forty, fifty years, or longer. Catherine Emmerich speaks of souls who had to spend hundreds of years in Purgatory. . . . The venerable Bernard Colnago, of the Society of Jesus, saw, in Rome, a soul that had already endured its punishment for forty-three years on one of the streets, . . . 

Francisca of the Holy Sacrament saw a continuous going and coming of poor souls. They appeared to her now fiery, now coal-black and emitting sparks. ... In face of such a total of facts, it matters little whether one or two of them should be found to be open to criticism" 

Link (here) to The Contemporary Review

Prima Primaria: For The Poor Souls In Purgatory

Purgatorial Societies

Pious associations or confraternities in the Catholic Church, which have as their purpose to assist in every possible way the poor souls in purgatory. The Catholic doctrine concerning purgatory, the condition of the poor souls after death, the communion of saints, and the satisfactory value of our good works form the basis of these associations, although they were called into life by pure Christian charity for one's neighbour which reaches beyond the grave. This brotherly love was the distinguishing mark of Christ's Church from the very beginning; the first Christian communities and the whole Church of the early centuries down to the time of the catacombs was one grand purgatorial society. The clearest evidence for this is supplied by the prayers for the dead in the oldest liturgies and breviary prayers, and by the earliest Christian inscriptions.

An excerpt from New Advent (here)

A Jesuit Ministry

The Sodality of Our Lady (also known as the Sodality of the Blessed Virgin Mary (in Latin, Congregationes seu sodalitates B. Mariæ Virginis) is a Roman Catholic Marian Society founded in 1563 in the Roman College of the Society of Jesus. On December 5, 1584, Pope Gregory XIII issued the Papal Bull "Omnipotentis Dei" commending this Sodality, enriching it with indulgences and establishing it as the Prima Primaria, that is, a mother Sodality which can communicate to other Sodalities affiliated with it the privileges and indulgences possessed by itself.
An excerpt from Wikipedia (here)

History of the Prima Primaria: Sodality of the Annunciation and Sts. Peter and Paul (here)

A book by Fr. Elder Mullan, S.J.