The Holy Souls will mourn and lament over their blindness and folly in accepting the miserable satisfaction of the transitory pleasures of earth at the cost of the separation from God and the physical torment that is their due. "Fools that we were!" they will cry out, "All the pleasures of our past life are not worth mentioning in comparison with the pain of one hour, nay, of one moment in Purgatory. They were but a shadow that passed by, the remembrance of them does but add to our suffering."

"Fools that we were!" they will again cry out, "We did not accept with resignation the sorrows and trials of earth. By our impatience, our murmuring, our discontent, we only made ourselves more miserable, and, for this very misery, added to our lot on earth by our own folly, we are suffering now far greater misery in these torturing flames, and by our separation from Him Who is the source of all happiness and all joy."

"Fools that we were! We might have turned all those sufferings into happiness, if we had used them as we ought. We might have lightened them, and made them comparatively easy to bear, if we had been resigned to the holy will of God; nay, we might have earned merit from each and all, and learned willingly and of our own accord that lesson of patience that here we learn, willingly, indeed, but nevertheless painfully, and as a just penalty of our impatience." Reflect what will be to you the chief cause of suffering when you come to Purgatory? Pleasures wrongfully indulged? or self-love? or sufferings badly borne?