Readings:
• Wis 3:1-9
• Rom 6:3-9
• Jn 6:37-40
“I’ve always had a hard time explaining purgatory,” the man said. “Didn’t the Second Vatican Council say that Catholics no longer have to believe in purgatory?”
That remark was made to me years ago, not long after I had entered the Catholic Church. Although I was saddened to hear it, it didn’t surprise me. In the course of studying various Catholic doctrines, I had learned that certain beliefs, including purgatory, were often avoided or even ignored by some Catholics.
And this, unfortunately, meant that many Catholics don’t appreciate the Feast of All Souls, which is all about praying for those who are in purgatory.
“I think purgatory is rather simple to understand,” I responded. “The problem is that we often have to do away with our flawed notions of purgatory.”
Growing up in a Fundamentalist home, I had been told purgatory was the belief that everyone gets a “second chance” after death. Purgatory, I had also been taught, was just another Catholic invention without any basis in Scripture.
What I learned years later was quite different. I saw that the early Christians prayed for the dead, and that this practice was based, in part, on the actions of those Jews who had prayed for the dead (cf., 2 Macc. 12:41-46). As today’s reading from the Book of Wisdom indicates, the idea of spiritual cleansing was a common one in the Old Testament:
For if before men, indeed, they be punished, yet is their hope full of immortality; chastised a little, they shall be greatly blessed, because God tried them and found them worthy of himself. As gold in the furnace, he proved them, and as sacrificial offerings he took them to himself.
It followed logically that if there was life after death for the just, those who were just would be cleansed fully and completely, if necessary, before entering the presence of God.
This, of course, also flowed from the deepened understanding of death and resurrection given through the life, death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. The Savior had promised, in today’s Gospel, “that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him may have eternal life, and I shall raise him on the last day.”
But the early Christians recognized that not every disciple of Jesus is perfectly cleansed in this life from venial sins. St. Augustine explained that the Church’s prayers, the Mass, and the giving of alms provided spiritual aid to the dead.
“The whole Church,” he wrote, “observes this practice which was handed down by the Fathers: that it prays for those who have died in the communion of the Body and Blood of Christ, when they are commemorated in their own place in the sacrifice itself; and the sacrifice is offered also in memory of them, on their behalf.”
It is ironic that the culture of death, which is present in many ways, is so afraid to face death squarely and honestly. It tries to cheat and avoid death, both mocking it and cowering before it in movies, books, video games, and music. We fear death because it is so mysterious and hidden. We fear it because it seems so unjust that the vibrancy of life can end so suddenly and completely.
If this world is all that exists, then death is to be feared. But it also will not be denied.
St. Paul, on the other hand, embraced death—that is, the death of Jesus Christ. “We were indeed buried with him through baptism into death,” he wrote to the Christians in Rome, “so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live in newness of life.”
The Feast of All Souls not only provides us an opportunity to pray for those who have gone before us, but also reminds us of our mortal end. We cannot deny it.
But by God’s grace we can and should prepare for it, trusting that the Lord our Shepherd will guide us through the valley of darkness.
(This “Opening the Word” column originally appeared in a slightly different form in the November 2, 2008, edition of Our Sunday Visitor newspaper.)
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Perhaps the putting on the wedding garment which is given to us can be compared to purgatory. It is a gift which we do not merit which we gladly receive in order to enter the banquet. Our own clothes, however splendid, are not acceptable. The given garments are identical and when put on ,render us all equally acceptable as guests. Perhaps purgatory is a place to be longed for rather than feared. The saints are those who accepted and wore their garments while still living and took them with them when they died. Praise God for those few exceptions who continue to intercede for us the weaker ones!
There are two articles on Purgatory today that explain the reason for the dead, or faithful departed being there. Purification in reparation for sins. Spiritual aid is mentioned seemingly in context of offering succor.
Unless I missed it, in neither article is there mention of our ability to assist in making reparation for them. This is essential because there’s what’s called the treasury of grace won by Christ, the martyrs, and saints that can be accessed by our prayers for the dead, sacrifices, and Masses offered for them. It has its biblical roots in Judas Maccabeus’ order that his men make a donation to the Jerusalem temple that the dead Jewish soldiers who were killed during battle were found to have worn idolatrous talismans. The intent was to save them from condemnation. Whether that’s a contested issue it’s a fact. Furthermore, if they were instead in Purgatory, the offering of silver coinage would not seem necessary to provide succor, and simply to acknowledge the Church is a community, which of course it is]. Rather it’s to make reparation. To shorten their stay in Purgatory.
I’m confident that the authors of the articles alluded to in my comment are aware of the indulgences that can be gained for those in Purgatory, which is implied in what they say. Although, the doctrine is worthy of mention for sake of the laity, those who may be unaware.
Purgatory is where you go after death so you can be FULLY cleansed of your sins so you can eventually enter into Heaven. This is accomplished by having people pray for you and by having Masses said for you, and you help your cause during your life by having true repentance for your sins and doing good works.
This is what I was taught many years ago – it made sense then, it makes sense now, and I still believe in it. If what I have said is too simplistic for some – so be it.
I once read an article by a Catholic priest, defending the doctrine of Purgatory, first published, I believe, in the 19th century. He stated that Protestants who refuse to accept the doctrine, even when shown its Biblical roots (those found outside the Book of Macabees, which Protestants don’t consider canonical), usually do so because they consider themselves too good to go to Purgatory and no one else good enough. 🤔
Susan Tassone is a current writer who has published a number of popularly written books on the subject of purgatory. I recommend them. I think it is true that people in today’s society are taught little about the concept of purgatory. This is because they are taught little about the concept of sin and the consequences of it. Thats because the preferred approach is to see God as a doting grandfather who is always in a favorable mood . You dont do anyone a good service by pretending sin and its eternal consequences do not exist.
Not sure if I missed it, but has anyone ever explained where purgatory is?
Our spatial imagination searches for a “place” but this is to fail in thinking more spiritually and ontologically. Might we say that purgatory, then, is a state of being or state of existence? The state of purification.
Still, when survivors called it “hell,” the geographic place of Auschwitz or the Gulag or Rwanda, we should be very good listeners, even if the listening Synod on Synodality listened little to any such stuff.
My daughter died suddenly on her 31st birthday. When I received the news of her sudden death, the first thing I did was to get my Bible, praying and asking the Holy Spirit for consolation and faith that my daughter would have been “saved”. I randomly opened my Bible and it fell on a passage I’d never read before: Widom 3:1-6 It immediately gave me and her brother consolation. Although she hadn’t been practicing her faith, I later saw that she had a Catholic church in her speed dial. I’m still praying for her release from purgatory some 25 years later. If she has been released by now, my prayers will have been answered and will go to another soul(s) who is awaiting its release into Heaven.