Souls who spend their Purgatory in Churches reveal themselves to priests.
There are many stories of souls fulfilling their Purgatory in a church.
There are legends such as that of Alondra of the Cathedral of Toledo, a young woman who died tragically before she could marry and began to appear in the cathedral during masses.
Several priests and parishioners claimed to have seen her, dressed in a white dress and a crown of flowers.
And there are also Padre Pio's accounts of monks who were serving their Purgatory inside the convent of San Giovanni Rotondo, where he lived.
And with whom he had contact.
And there are repeated testimonies of priests who witnessed Souls from Purgatory praying inside churches.
Here we will recount 4 encounters of priests with souls from Purgatory inside churches.
A priest from the USA went into the sacristy to prepare for morning Mass and heard a group of men and women praying the Rosary in the church, with a devotion that is not normally heard.
And it struck him as odd because it was too early to pray the Rosary, there were no cars in the parking lot, and how had they gotten in?
He opened the sacristy door and peeked into the church.
And as soon as he opened the sacristy door, the prayer ceased and he saw that the church was empty.
Confused he went back into the sacristy and heard the same rosary prayer again.
Then he realized that they must be Souls from Purgatory praying in front of the Blessed Sacrament.
Because God sometimes allows poor souls to pray in church in front of the Blessed Sacrament, to do at least part of their cleansing in familiar places?
But a Filipino priest went so far as to pray with them, although they remained invisible.
One night after the devastating typhoon "Amy" of December 8, 1951, a young priest named Cipriano Urgel was praying the Latin responso for the dead inside the chapel of the Parish of Our Lady of the Assumption in Barangay Bontay.
What happened that night became part of Urgel's legend because later this priest would become the first Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Palo in 1982.
Urgel was praying the "Hail Mary" in Latin under his breath, when he heard a voice from somewhere replying "Holy Mary, Mother of God...", also in Latin.
When he looked around there was no one there but him. Frightened, the priest stopped praying and hardly slept that night.
The next night Urgel again prayed the responso.
And when he began to pray the Hail Mary, this time several voices responded with "Holy Mary, Mother of God...".
Once again he looked around, but he was the only one inside the chapel.
And instead of panicking, Urgel continued to pray, but now as he recited the Holy Rosary, it was a choir that answered, and their voices grew louder.
Urgel continued his recitation every night with the strange voices as a choir, until it faded in frequency and then stopped altogether.
He was later informed that the chapel was the site of an old cemetery, before the church was built, in the 1870s.
And he thought those were lost souls who made their way back to God there.
Another case occurred in an Alaskan parish and was written about thanks to Leonese Jesuit priest Segundo Llorente, a missionary in the Arctic Circle.
Father Llorente says he transcribed the testimony of another priest, but many think it happened to him.
After Christmas Midnight Mass he personally closed the church, went to his room and fell asleep.
At 7:30 a.m. he got up and went to the church again with the intention of having an hour of prayer.
He opened the side door leading to the sacristy and then turned on the church lights.
And as he opened the church door he saw strangely dressed people, in the poorest of clothes, occupying most of the pews.
Everyone was in total silence. No one was moving and no one cared to look at him.
A small group stood by the manger scene, contemplating it in total silence.
The priest quickly recovered himself and in a loud voice asked how they got there. "Who let them in?"
And a woman answered totally nonchalantly, "Strange things happen on Christmas night." And back came total silence.
He went to check the front door and found it locked just as he had left it. And determined to clear up the facts he turned his face to the benches, but they were empty. The people had disappeared.
Father Segundo LLorente's explanation is that they were the dead who were doing their Purgatory, or part of it, in the church?
And we also have the case of a priest who went to see how the Cathedral of Messina had been left after a great earthquake.
After lunch he asked the custodian to open the door so he could look and pray.
After spending a long time admiring the statues and paintings, he went to pray in front of the statue of the Blessed Virgin. He fell asleep.
When he woke up he noticed that it was beginning to get dark, he tried to open the doors but they were locked.
He started knocking and shouting for someone to help him, but the custodian had gone home thinking that the priest had already left.
He realized he was going to have to sleep in the church and settled into a confessional for the night.
After the bell rang at midnight, he heard a noise, and astonished he saw the altar of the Church surrounded by a mysterious light.
And from a niche in the wall appeared a monk with his hood over his head who said aloud, "There is a priest here, let him celebrate a Mass for my soul suffering in Purgatory!"
The priest was frightened, hid in the confessional and began to pray without stopping.
At two o'clock in the morning the bells rang again and he saw that again the altar was illuminated, and the monk came out of the niche saying, "There is a priest here, let him celebrate a Mass for my soul who suffers in Purgatory!".
The Priest still frightened, said nothing, and again the Church was darkened.
Then the Priest asked the Blessed Virgin to give him courage.
He heard the bells of three o'clock in the morning. And the monk went out again asking if there was a priest to celebrate Mass.
The priest came out of the confessional and said, "Yes, I will do it."
He went to the altar and found everything prepared for Mass, he dressed himself and offered Mass for the intention of the repose of the monk's soul.
And after the Mass was over he heard the voice coming from the niche in the wall that said, "I cannot thank you enough for what you have done for me. For 145 years I have been coming here asking someone to help me.
Tonight I will be in Heaven because of your Mass and your act of charity.
By the Grace of God I will show you my gratitude by warning you when your own death approaches."
And years later the monk gave him three days' notice of his death.
And later, when they began to restore the church, they found in the wall niche near the altar a monk's skeleton with a brown hood.