Deepertruth: What the Blessed Virgin Mary Has Said About Purgatory

Judas Maccabeus was a leader in Israel who won many battles and for a time won liberty for his people. After a major battle, some of Judas Maccabeus’s men who were killed in battle were found with Pagan amulets that offended God. This was forbidden yet some of them took the risk of disobedience. “Turning to supplication, they prayed that the sinful deed might be fully blotted out. The noble Judas warned the soldiers to keep themselves free from sin, for they had seen with their own eyes what happened because of the sin of those who had fallen. He then took up a collection among all his soldiers, amounting to two thousand silver drachmas, which he sent to Jerusalem to provide for an expiatory sacrifice. In doing this he acted in a very excellent and noble way, inasmuch as he had the resurrection of the dead in view; for if he were not expecting the fallen to rise again, it would have been useless and foolish to pray for them in death. But if he did this with a view to the splendid reward that awaits those who had gone to rest in godliness, it was a holy and pius thought. Thus he made atonement for the dead that they might be freed from this sin”.