“Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.” – James 1:2-4

I am currently enrolled in a class to finally finish up my certification in Spiritual Direction through Avila Institute and Heart of Christ. It has taken me longer than I ever thought because I had to take a break from the classes when I was caring for my parents. God willing, I will be done in June.

The class focuses a lot on Ignatian teaching, combined with Carmelite teaching and it has been very helpful. Over the past several weeks we have been studying what Saint Ignatius said about discernment in decision making and he speaks about something called “the principle and foundation.” The is the opening of his Spiritual Exercises, and if you don’t have this down, it becomes very difficult to discern the will of God. The principle and foundation says this;

Man is created to praise, reverence, and serve God our Lord, and by this means to save his soul. All other things on the face of the earth are created for man, to help him attain the end for which he is created. From this follows that we must use created things insofar as they help us toward our end, and free ourselves from them insofar as they hinder us. Therefore, we should make ourselves indifferent to created things…so that we desire and choose only what is more conducive to the end for which we are created.

This means we should not desire wealth over poverty, health over sickness, honor or dishonor, long life or short, but we should only desire that which helps us praise reverence and serve God our Lord. It is called Holy Indifference and it doesn’t mean we are cold and unemotional, it simply means that the most important thing to us is what brings us closer to God. All else is an attachment that is not of God. We are to work on purifying ourselves of attachment. When we have the principle and foundation down, we are in the will of God.

I have pondered this often in my own life, particularly when I felt one path was better than another and I found out the Lord thought differently. I was attached to something he didn’t want for me. Often the thing I was attached to stroked my pride and ego. I pray to be purified of that.

This class coupled with a conversation I had with a friend about an immense suffering in doing ministry made me take all of it to prayer. And I felt the Lord speak to me about purgatory. If what I write the church says is wrong, then know the church is correct and I am not. I write as if the Lord is speaking to me based on what pops in my head in prayer. This is what I felt was being said about purgatory.

February 6, 2026

Beloved Lily of the Father,

Sin has consequences and though your sin is forgiven when you repent and confess the temporal punishment remains. This is the spiritual consequence of the sin committed. the repair to be made. Heaven has no need of repair. Heaven has no attachments other than to me. The temporal punishment means “in time”, so it is tied to the earth and the created things. While purgatory is a process of purification, it takes place in time and space. It is not in eternity. The consequences are tied to earth and to time and space because that’s where the sin and the spiritual repercussions took place. Gravity slows down time, purgatory is in the center of the earth where time is slower and the sense of it gets lost.

You can live your purgatory on earth while alive – body and soul together – by loving in the middle of the sin and the consequences of sin. Often, you feel separated from me, but the more you learn to rely on me, the more you love. I AM love. It is far better to suffer on earth than to feel those consequences after you die because that feels like hell but isn’t. The separation you feel now, is small in comparison to the separation you feel after you die, but your love becomes perfected which is why the suffering is so immense because you know what you’re separated from.

You cannot merit grace on your own because all grace is from Me. But you do merit by participation with me. When you resist concupiscence, endure suffering and choose love when it costs something, there is real spiritual fruit I attach and that is what you merit. Your actions and your participation mean something. Your choices matter.

If you die imperfectly attached to something not of me, you learn what real separation feels like and you work out those consequences in time and space surrounded by what you once knew, feeling the effects of the needed repair.

There is so much more that you do not see and do not know. But the earth is affected by all of this. The earth is affected by sin, the earth is affected by Godliness. All things are connected.

Participate in your purification now. Be detached from your lowly desires and attached to heavenly desires. You’ll fly to heaven when you accept and do not battle against My Will.

Pray for the souls in purgatory. It is a great sorrow for those who have no one to pray for them.

Therefore, he had this expiatory sacrifice offered for the dead so that they might be delivered from their sin. 2 Macabees 12:46

Abba