The Venerable Bede relates an
occurrence which in his time created a great sensation in England and was readily
believed. A man by the name of Drycthelm died after a severe illness. After being dead for
a night, he rose again to the great terror of the bystanders. Then he related his
experiences in the next world as follows:"A young guide conducted my soul into an extensive valley full of horrors and darkness, so that I was filled with terror. It was divided into two apartments, one filled with fire and flames, the other with snow, ice and frost. There I beheld a Countless number of Suffering Souls, hideously disfigured and fearfully tormented, and pressing forward like a stream from one apartment into the other. They precipitated themselves from the icy lake into the flames, from the cold into the fire, finding no rest. I imagined I saw the torments of hell, so great were the sufferings I witnessed. But my guide corrected me, telling me it was only Purgatory, and in particular the abode of such souls as had delayed their repentance till on their deathbed, for which they were sentenced to Purgatory till the day of general judgment. But the prayers of the faithful, their suffrages of alms, penance and fasting, and particularly the Holy Masses offered up for them, relieve them in their torments, abbreviate their punishment and hasten the time of their deliverance."
This portrayal of the sufferings in Purgatory is far from overdrawn: it rather does not justice to the reality. Convinced of this, St. Bernard exhorts us: "Brethren, put away from you the old leaven as long as there is time. The days of probation pass away, whether We use them for our purification or not; but woe to us if they are fulfilled before our cleansing is accomplished, so that we have to be purified in that fire, than which nothing in this world can be imagined more painful, smarting and acute." The holy Fathers and theological writers in general coincide with this view.