Fr. Philip Schoofs was a Jesuit Priest who died in Louvain in 1878. During the first years of his ministry the city of Antwerp, he was involved in a rather unusual incident.

He had just returned to the College of Notre Dame after a busy day of preaching the Faith. Shortly after he returned, he was told that someone had asked to see him, and they were waiting downstairs in the parlor.

He went down at once. There he found two young men - brothers - with a pale and sickly child of about ten years. The strangers were quick to introduce themselves.

"Father," they began, "here is a poor child that we have adopted." Proudly nodding at the little boy, they added how much he deserved their protection, as he was so good and pious . "We feed and educate him. And for more than a year he has been part of our family. He has been happy and enjoyed good health. It is only for the last few weeks that he has begun to grow thin and pine away, as you now see him."

"What is the cause of this change?" asked the priest.

"It is fright." They replied.

Then the two brothers proceeded to explain the cause of the boy’s fears. "The child is awakened every night by a ghost. He assures us that there is a man who comes to him, and he sees this man as distinctly as he sees us in full daylight. This is the cause of the child’s continual fear and uneasiness. We come, Father, to ask you for some remedy."

"My friends," replied Fr. Schoofs, "with God there is a remedy for all things. Both of you start by making a good confession and Communion. Beg God to deliver you from all evil, and fear nothing."

Then the priest looked down at the poor, sickly boy, and added with a smile. "As for you, my child, say your prayers well. Then sleep so soundly that no ghost can awake you." He then dismissed them, telling them to return in case anything more should happen.

Two weeks later... they returned.

"Father, we have followed your orders," they told him earnestly. "And still the ghost appearances continue as before. The child always sees the same man appear."

Hearing this, Fr. Schoofs gave them the following instructions: "From this evening forward, watch at the door of the child’s room, with paper and ink to write the answers. When the boy warns you of the presence of that man, ask this man, in the name of God, who he is, the time of his death, where he lived, and why he returns."

The following day they returned, carrying the paper with the answers which they had received.

"We saw the man that appears to the child." They said.

They described him as an old man - they could only see about to his shoulders, and he wore a costume of the olden times. He told them his name, and the house in which he had dwelt in Antwerp. He had died in 1636. During his life, he had been a banker in that same house - which, in his time, consisted of two houses. In Fr. Schoof’s day, these two houses could be seen situated to the right and left of the place which was currently in Antwerp. After the man told them this, certain documents were discovered in the archives of the city of Antwerp which prove the accuracy of what he described.

But most importantly, the man told them that he was in Purgatory, and that but few prayers had been said for him. He then begged the persons of the house to offer Holy Communion for him, and he asked that a pilgrimage be made for him to Notre Dame des Fievres, and another to Notre Dame de la Chapelle in Brussels.

"You will do well to accomplish all these requests," advised Fr. Schoofs, "and if the spirit returns, before speaking to him, require him to say the Our Father, Hail Mary, and Creed."

With great piety, they did as the poor soul asked, and many conversions were achieved. When all was finished, and the young men had seen the poor soul again, they returned to the priest. With no little amazement, they told him.

"Father, he prayed - but in a tone of indescribable faith and piety. We never heard any one pray like that. What reverence in the Our Father! What love in the Hail Mary! What fervor in the Creed! Now we know what it is to pray. Then he thanked us for our prayers. He was greatly relieved, and would have been entirely delivered from Purgatory - had not an assistant in our shop made a sacrilegious Communion. We have told the assistant what he said. She turned pale, acknowledged her guilt, then running to her confessor, hastened to repair her crime."

In narrating this extraordinary event, Fr. Schoofs concluded happily how since that day "that house has never been troubled and the family that inhabit it have prospered rapidly, and to-day they are rich."

He added that the two brothers continued to live exemplary lives. Their sister became a Religious in a convent, and later became the Superior.

It was no coincidence that things went well for those people after the soul was released from Purgatory. Like all relieved Poor Souls, the man that they freed wished to show his gratitude by obtaining the blessings of God upon his benefactors.