In reading my pastor’s bulletin reflections about the Fatima apparitions, one remark in particular struck me.

At some point, the three children asked Mary if two of their deceased friends were in heaven.

One was already in heaven, the Blessed Mother told them. The other, Amelia, would be in purgatory, she said, “until the end of the world.”

Obviously, Amelia was not a known terrorist or serial killer. She was a friend to these future saints, perhaps long a friend of their families. So, it is sobering to ponder what this apparently-ordinary woman might have done that would warrant such a lengthy time in purgatory.

But then, there are plenty of hidden ways people everywhere can be unfaithful or hurt others while maintaining a normal-looking, successful, or even a faith-filled exterior.

Amelia’s purgatory time underscores for me how well God knows our hearts and our actions. He sees what happens in our homes, in our places of business, in our churches, schools, parks, vacation spots, dark alleys, empty buildings, “under the boardwalk” or wherever. He comprehends our motives, mixed motives, temptations, blind spots and how naïve we otherwise might be. He can see our lack — or abundance — of knowledge, all the ins and outs of our personalities, and the scars we have from our past — including those from childhood that we ourselves don’t remember.

For those who attack others in secret — with tongues or computers or other weapons — knowledge of God’s omnipresence would be a gift and a warning that they need to repent and change.

For those who secretly work behind the scenes to make the world a better place, pondering God’s presence everywhere is uplifting. And victims of meanness, hatred, misplaced fear or greed can take comfort that they are not alone.

Another ponderable part of Amelia’s after-death sufferings is the realization that purgatory is an essential component of God’s kind benevolence toward us. Because none of us is perfect, even if we do many kindly things, we still can mess up when situations catch us by surprise or are simply too overwhelming or frightening for us to take the high road and respond as Jesus would have us do.

We all need God’s mercy, and the vast majority of us should rejoice in the chance to be made perfect after death in purgatory. We will be blessed to get there.

But how much better if we would do all we can here on earth to grow more and more perfect in love! What keeps us from making progress? Self-love, of course, and also the earthly, human love that merely reflects the basic goodness we see in people around us.

When we question the quality of our love, it is tempting to compare ourselves to the people around us. That’s not a good plan. With only a little effort, we can find plenty of examples of bad role models. Most of us are not surrounded by saints. And, as noted above, we can’t reliably read hearts and identify who those saints around us are.

Much more reliable are the identified saints — men and women who learned to embrace God’s perfect love. Many of them have left us letters and longer writings that describe their struggles and insights on how Jesus calls us to more than love of family and friends. As regular human beings, they give us hope in the power of God’s graces and merciful assistance to anyone willing to do their best to follow Him.

Their ranks could have included Amelia, but perhaps she was blind to who she was and thought she was living a good enough life. Or maybe she believed what was hidden from everyone else was invisible also to God.

We don’t know her story. But we who are living still have options.

We can choose Jesus, accept His sacrificial love, repent of our sins and strive to change and grow more perfect in love.