A deceased woman suffers the deprivation of God
The noted theologian, Fr. Juan Eusebio Nieremberg told the facts of the following story that happened in Treves, Spain.
It was All Saints Day when a young and pious girl received an apparition. It was a lady who had died, and it was someone whom the girl knew in life. The apparition was dressed in white with a white veil on her head. In her hand was a long rosary that revealed her devotion to Mary. The apparition spoke to the girl and told her that she had made a vow to have three masses celebrated at the altar of the Blessed Virgin. She asked the young girl to fulfill it in her place.
The girl agreed and did it. The woman appeared again and thanked the girl. She revealed that she was in purgatory and the masses helped a great lot.
The woman continued to appear to the girl in the following years every November. Almost every time, the woman would be in adoration before the Blessed Sacrament. Apparently, since the woman could not yet see God face to face, the Eucharist was the closest the woman could get to the God whom she loved.
Whenever the woman appeared to the girl during mass, the woman's face would become radiant when during the Elevation of the host. The girl would recount how much she marveled at seeing something so beautiful.
It was December 3, the Feast of St. Francis Xavier, when the girl was about to receive Holy Communion when the woman appeared and accompanied the girl to the altar rail and then stayed beside her the whole time. The girl recounts it was the way the woman could participate in the happiness of Christ's presence in Holy Communion.
On December 8, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, the woman appeared again, this time shining more brilliant than before that the girl could not look directly at her. Then during mass on December 10, the woman appeared even more brilliant and then after genuflecting in front of the altar, she thanks the pious girl and then rose to heaven accompanied by her guardian angel.
The girl recounted something that the woman revealed to her during the time before she went to heaven. The woman said she suffered only one thing in purgatory, and that was the pain of loss — the sorrow of being separated from God, which alone caused her unbearable torture.
In the words of St. Chrysostom, "Imagine all the torments of the world. You will not find one equal to the deprivation of the beatific vision of God." This is why we should help the suffering souls in purgatory by gaining indulgences for them.
