Purgatory and Heaven

by John Peter Arendzen

The nature, joy, and sorrows of Purgatory—its fire, mental agony, how to avoid it, etc. Plus, the nature and happiness of Heaven—its never-ending freshness, the Beatific Vision, personal friendship with God, the "light of glory," etc. Brief but excellent.

Genres: Catholic

96 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1951

About the author

John Arendzen was educated privately at home and then attended St Mary's College, Oscott. St. Mary's was the diocesan seminary for the Diocese of Birmingham, but in fact functioned as a general seminary serving a number of dioceses. It was the practice of the Diocese of Westminster to send seminarians to St. Mary's. Arendzen was ordained in 1895.[3] He served as a diocesan missioner.
Church of The Sacred Heart, St Ives

From 1900 to 1903 he served as parish priest for Sacred Heart Church, St Ives, while matriculated at Christ's College, Cambridge, taking his BA in 1901. During his tenure at St. Ives, the small wooden church was replaced. With the opening of Our Lady and the English Martyrs Church in Cambridge in October 1890, the smaller St. Andrew's Church, which had been built in 1843 by Augustus Pugin, was no longer needed. In 1902 a local benefactor purchased the church and had it dismantled and brought by barge to All Saints parish in St. Ives. On 9 July 1902, the church was rededicated to the Sacred Heart by Bishop Riddell of the Diocese of Northampton. Father Arendzen gave a speech at the luncheon that followed.[4]

In 1903 Arendzen became one of the original members of the Westminster Diocesan Missionary Society of Our Lady of Compassion, commonly known as the Catholic Mission Society, founded by Cardinal Vaughn. Upon the cardinal's death that same year, the project was continued by the small group of five priests he had gathered, which included his nephew, also named Herbert Vaughn.

He served at the mission of St. John the Evangelist in Brentford, until April 1904. He and his brother Alphonse, also a member of the Catholic Missionary Society, both served at the parish of St. Mary Magdalen in Willesden Green.

He became an expert in Arabic and was professor of Holy Scripture at St Edmund's College, Ware. He wrote a number of articles for scholarly journals, chiefly on the Old Testament.

He made many contributions to the Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913.

Reviews

[David Chavarria · Rating 5 out of 5]

Heaven
“What scenes God shall provide for our eyes, what music for our ears, what a Paradise in which to walk in the cool of the evening, none of us can think… There must be physical glories in heaven of some kind, besides the purely spiritual ones. What they will be, God has not deigned to reveal, lest in our present infirmity we should let our minds rest more on the future joys of sense than on the Beatific Vision.”

Purgatory
“No cell in a monastery more tranquil, no seclusion in a convent more abso-lute, than our stillness in purgatory. We are just left with God alone.”


“It is an ocean on which the little craft of created intelligences can forever press forward in all directions, for it is a sea without a shore.”

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Easy read with good insights on the reality after our Earthly life. Originally titled as the compelling question “From What Becomes of the Dead? “ 1951 by Sheed and Ward. My edition was by Canterbury Press in 1960 sold for all of 75 cents!

This quote from the Resurrection of the Body (Glorification of the body) is a sample of what the writing focuses on:

“It is sown in corruption, it will rise in incorruption; it is sown in animal body, it will rise a spiritual body; it is sown in infirmity, it shall rise in power; it is sown in ignominy, it shall rise in glory”.

Chapter XV of the First Epistle to the Corinthians.

[Amber Rose · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall it was a very good book, nice and short! It also touched on hell which I think was very helpful.
I enjoyed it