Asked how a person can do Purgatory on earth, St. Padre Pio once remarked, “By accepting everything from God’s hands.  By offering everything up to Him with love and thanksgiving so as to enable us to pass from our deathbed to Paradise.”

Similarly, Jesus said to Luisa Picaretta, “I want you to know that everything I let happen to you, be it either by means of the demons or by other creatures, is directed by me for your greater good.  And it all goes toward guiding your soul to that final state to which I have chosen you.”

Here are Betty’s words to me on this: “The ‘bottom line’ is that every minute on earth is an opportunity to merit Heaven and escape Purgatory.  In the afterlife, the test is over.  Now the wrong decisions must be atoned for, and that can take seconds, minutes, days, months, or years. 

Learn to move into the ambiance of everything.  The enemy will say that there’s no way this could be His will. That is the rejection of the theology of suffering. 

Turn to the Lord and say, “Lord you’re permitting this. Don’t let me miss the good that’s to come when Hell breaks loose.   Lord, help me take responsibility for what’s mine, and give you what’s not.”