Purgatory

PURGATORY

BASIC R.C. BELIEF A place or state to which a person who died in the state of grace but with unsatisfied temporal punishment or venial sin must go so that purifying punishment can satisfy God’s judgment and make him ready for Heaven. “All the souls in purgatory will go to Heaven when they have atoned for their sin” (ST. PETER’S CATECHISM).

From LIFE FOR EVER, Catholic Enquiry Centre, Imp. Patritius Casey, 1967 page 175. “Only those go to hell who say a definite `no’ to God in this life. Only those go to heaven who say an unhesitating `yes’ to God in this life. We may wonder what happens to those people who never give a definite answer to God during their lives. Common sense indicates that there must be many individuals who die and are not yet ready for the immediate presence of God in heaven But they are by no means sufficiently evil to merit hell. What happens to these people? Christ, through his Church, answers this question with the doctrine of purgatory.”

Ibid., page 176. “Prayer for the dead has been a Christian practice from the very beginning. Even before the time of Christ it was the custom of some Jews to pray for their dead.”

From PURGATORY, Knights of Columbus, Imp. John Whealon, page 2,3. “`Purgatory,’ writes Father Martin D’Arcy, `has always been one of the tenderest beliefs of Christendom. It takes all the pagan melancholy, so touching in the Greerk Anthology and the Roman epitahs, and suffuses it with supernatural hope. It is no wonder that (the feast of) All Souls is in so many countries one of the best remembered days of the calendar.

“What is this doctrine that Catholics hold so dear? According to the teaching of the Church, traceable back through the centuries to the earliest Christian writers, Purgatory is that intermediate state or condition in the next world where the souls of those who die in the state of grace, but are not yet free of all the imperfection, are purified before they enter Heaven. This purification consists in making satisfaction or expiation for all unforgiven venial sins or for the temporal punishment due to venial and mortal sins that have already been forgiven.

“Obviously we are asked to believe something whose existence cannot be proved by reason, any more than can the doctrines of Heaven and Hell. But the doctrine itself is a gracious blending of the mercy and justice of the all-holy God. `Nothing defiled can enter heaven,’ we are told, and during this period of purgation, all the dross is burned away until the moment when, in then judgment of God, the soul is ready for entrance into the presence-chamber of God. Clearly, we repeat, we are in the presence of a supernatural mystery – but a mystery that is both consoling and reasonable.'”

Ibid., page 11. “Father D’Arcy notes that the doctrine of Purgatory is supported by the spontaneous convictions of a large portion of mankind…St. Thomas writes, `Such persons must then be cleansed in the next life before entering upon their eternal reward. This cleansing is done by penal afflictions, as even in this life it might have been completed by penal works of satisfaction; otherwise the negligent would be no better off than the careful, if the penalty that men do not pay here for their sins is not to be undergone by them in the life to come.’…If there is no sort of purgation after death, why bother trying to atone for sin in this life? ”

Ibid., page 15. “The Church has no certainty, nor do those who pray have any certainty that their prayers will infallibly assist this or that particular soul for whom the prayers are offered, nor that they will infallibly achieve an immediate effect.”

From ETERNAL LIFE, Catholic Enquiry Centre, Imp. Georgius Craven, page 190. “An old hymn says of Purgatory: `O place of happy pains, and land of dear desires, where love divine detains glad souls among sweet fires.'”

From PURGATORY, Catholic Truth Society, page 4. “The Church taught…that the souls of the just…could not pass to their place of refreshment, light and peace till their sins were atoned for.”

Ibid., page 6. “`Nothing defiled can enter Heaven’, and so the cleansing of sin which remain at death must be accomplished in some state midway between this world and Heaven…`thou shalt not go out from thence till thou repay the last farthing.’ What is the last farthing? It is a sin, said Tertullian, which is readily forgiven but must still be paid for. We should now call it a venial sin.”

Ibid., page 7, regarding I Cor 3:10. “Now this passage of St. Paul refers to the `fire’ of judgment at the last day and cannot refer directly to Purgatory, which will then cease to exist. But it has been used in the Church as an apt illustration of the doctrine of Purgatory.”

Ibid., page 9. “But there still remains the justice of God to be satisfied. That debt the soul willingly and lovingly pays at Purgatory.”

Ibid., page 14. “For the Church has no jurisdiction in Purgatory. The Pope could not empty Purgatory by granting an indulgence.”

From READ ME OR RUE IT by Fr. Paul O’Sullivan. Imp. Joanner Timotheus, Archiepiscopus, Cincinnatenesis, 8/22/25. Re-printed 11/2/74 by National Centre for Padre Pio, 11 N. Whitehall Rd., Norristown, PA 19403.

“While undergoing the process of purification the souls in Purgatory are powerless and can do nothing to better themselves.”

“On one occasion, while in conversation with some friars who were questionning him on the importantce of his prayers for (Holy Souls), Padre Pio said, `More souls of the dead from Purgatory than of the living, climb this mountain to attend my Masses and seek my prayers.”

“One day as Padre Pio and his brother friars were eating in the rectory, suddenly and unusually, he got up and went to the entrance door of the Friary where he started a lively conversation with some people who, however, remained invisible to the other friars who followed them. As they watched Padre Pio talking to what appeared to them to be no one, the friars remarked to one another,` He has gone crazy.’ However, they asked him to whom he was talking and Padre Pio smilingly replied, `Oh, don’t worry, I was talking to some souls who, while on their way from Purgatory to Heaven, stopped here to thank me because I remembered them at my Mass this morning,’ and with this, he returned to the refectory as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened.”

“What is Purgatory? It is a prison of fire in which nearly all souls are plunged after death and in which they suffer the intensest pain. Here is what the great Doctors of the Church tell us about Purgatory. So grievous is their suffering that one minute in this awful fire seems like a century. St. Thomas, the Prince of theologians, says that the fire of Purgatory is equal in intensity to the fire of Hell. St. Augustine teaches that to be purified of their faults previously to being admitted to Heaven, souls after death are subjected to a fire more dreadful than anything we can conceive in this life. `Though this fire is destined to cleanse and purify the soul,’ adds the Holy Doctor, `still it is more acute than anything we could possibly endure on earth.'”

“St. Loiuis Bertrand’s father was an exemplary Christian. When he died, his saintly son offered many Masses and poured forth the most fervent supplications for the soul he so dearly loved. Yet eight whole years passed before he obtained the release of his father. St. Malachy’s sister was detained in Purgatory for a very long time despite the Masses, prayers and heroic mortification the Saint offered for her. It was related to a holy nun in Famphluna, who succeeded in releasing many Carmelite nuns from Purgatory that most of these had spent terms of from thirty to sixty years. In the Dominican order it is the rule to pray for the Masters General by name on their anniversaries. Many of these have been dead for several hundred years.”

“Blessed John of Massias, the Dominican lay brother, obtained by his prayers (chiefly by the recitation of the Rosary), the liberation of one million four hundred thousand souls!”

“Many people have the custom of saying 500 or 1,000 times each day the little ejaculation “Sacred Heart of Jesus I place my trust in thee.” Those who say ejaculations 1,000 times a day gain 300,000 days Indulgence. What a multitude of souls they can thus relieve. (Ed-although Indulgences are no longer given a time value, saying this ejaculation 1,000 times a day for 50 years would have merited 15,000,000 YEARS. If only 1% of the world’s Catholics did this, the total would have been 135,000,000,000,000 years indulgence. But this still does not equal the infinite merits of Christ.)”

Padre Pio said, “For some time now, I have felt the need to offer myself to the Lord as a victim for poor sinners and for the souls in Purgatory.”

POST VATICAN II Modern priests don’t emphasize Purgatory; a progressive theologian has likened it an atomic blast after death that instantly purifies.

Vatican II said, “In Purgatory, the souls of those who died in the charity of God and truly repentant, but who have not made satisfaction with adequate penance for their sins and omissions, are cleansed after death with punishment designed to purge away their debt.”

Marianhill Fathers, Dearborn, MI, send out an annual appeal for funds to say Masses for the “Poor Souls” in Purgatory. In their 1978 letter, they presented Purgatory as follows: “The soul, when it dies, goes straight to God. However, one look at the perfect Holiness in Heaven convinces the soul that it is not ready, so it goes to Purgatory for preparation.”

On the Mass Card of a one year old girl who died in 1984 were the following words, “O Gentlest Heart of Jesus, ever consumed with burning love for the poor captive souls in Purgatory, have mercy on the soul of Thy departed servant. Let some drops of Thy precious Blood fall upon the devouring flames.”

“Proof” from the Scriptures and the Apocrypha are found in II Maccabees 12:46; Matthew 5:25; 12:32; I Corinthians 3:15; Revelation 21:27.

From CATHOLICS AND PURGATORY, Knights of Columbus, Imp. John Whealon, page 5. “the friend cannot pay in place of the debtor unless the creditor agrees. So the one who pays must first merit a hearing that he may plead with the creditor to let him pay in place of his friend. Prayers said for those in Purgatory are always dependent upon God’s discretion. He distributes their proffered satisfaction in the way that he judges to be just. Some are more deserving of immediate release than others.”

Ibid., page 7,8. “It is a matter of Catholic faith that the just who at the moment of death are burdened with venial sins or with a debt of satisfaction for sins to enter Purgatory,. Hence, it is also a matter of Catholic faith that Purgatory exists. It is a matter of Catholic faith that those in Purgatory can be helped by tthe prayers and good works of the just on earth. Likewise, it is a matter of Catholic faith that the Church has the power to grant indulgences and that these are useful and salutory for the faithful. Other matters like the nature of the fire, the duration of Purgatory, the nature of the purification, etc. are the opinions of theologians and are subject, therefore, to reconsideration and perhaps revision…some scholars think that in many cases it is bypassed by the purification effected in one’s very death agony when this is accepted with loving resignation to God’s will.”

CATHOLIC JOURNALS From LIGUORIAN, November 1981. “Q: Why does God demand more punishment in purgatory after death? It’s almost as if God carries a grudge over the sins he forgave in life. What purposes does purgatory serve? A: Rather than look at purgatory as a punishment for sin, could we not look at it in a different way? First, our salvation is a growth into the likeness of God. Our process of spiritual growth is so slow. Each time we move forward three steps, we slip back two. Our whole life is a series of successes and failures. For this reason, it seems the process of becoming worthy of God cannot stop with death.

“After death, we will be confronted by the majesty of God’s presence. We will realize with total clarity how far short we fell in becoming `like God.’ This realization will be a suffering for us. We will long to be what we should be, a longing so intense it will be like a burning pain. The image of fire in purgatorty describes well this inner suffering. Purgatory is not arbitrary punishment but the final stage of spiritual growth. Purgatory is really God’s love-gift for the sinner. Father John Fasrnik, C.SS.R.”

From THE CATHOLIC VOICE, Oakland, CA 5/18/81. Question Box by Father John Dietzen. “Purgatory is still very much a part of our faith as every Sacrifice of the Mass and every other prayer for the dead attests.

“The hoary pictuires of torture, pain and a scourging God which made of purgatory a kind of mini-hell may literally scare the devil out of someone, but they are totally irrelevant to the doctrine of purgatory.

“It is very possible that in the burst of awareness of the reality of God and creation that might occur immediately after death, the pain that comes from our knowledge of our sins and shortcomings might be so acute and intense that an entire purgatory – or cleansing, which is what the word purgatory means – could occur in an instant.”

From THE CATHOLIC VOICE, Oakland, CA 6/1/81. “Scholars say St. Paul’s prayer for Onesimus in II Tim 1:18 (the Lord grant unto him that he may find mercy of the Lord in that day) could imply the existence of purgatory.”

CHRISTIAN COMMENT Even the apocryphal verse in II Maccabees doesn’t prove Purgatory, as the men for whom the prayer was offered died in idolatry (a mortal sin) and, according to Roman Catholic theology, they were in Hell, not Purgatory. No one can pray you out of Hell.

A Roman Catholic may feel the prison of Matthew 5:25 alludes to Purgatory, but verse 26 states that the prisoner has to pay for his release. In the Roman Catholic Purgatory, people on earth pay for the prisoners in Purgatory.

Matthew 12:32 doesn’t state there is forgiveness after death, and Purgatory is mainly for temporal punishment of sins already forgiven but not paid in full.

Roman Catholic theologians admit I Corinthians 3:15 is a final judgment at which time there will be no more Purgatory.

When they quote Revelation 21:27, we agree that all have sinned, and that no sin can enter Heaven. There must be a place where we can go for cleansing, and Hebrews 1:3 tells us of cleansing; Jesus Christ purged our sins (Roman Catholic version “Christ has effected man’s purgation from sin”). The fact that no further cleansing is needed is backed up by I John 1:7. Calvary’s Cross is God’s Perfect Purgatory.

We can challenge our Roman Catholic friends by asking which Purgatory they want for their cleansing: the uncertain Roman Catholic Purgatory or God’s promised cleansing from all sin.