Purgatory & Jesus' Death

[Maccabeus]

If Purgatory exists than why did Jesus have to die?
was it really necessary???

[cappie]

Jesus' death and resurrection was the perfect sacrifice that allows us to go to Heaven. Nothing we can do could ever "merit" our going to Heaven---only Jesus' death. In the book of Revelation we are told that "nothing unclean shall enter Heaven." (Rev 21:27) If nothing unclean shall enter Heaven then how are we made clean? We are made clean, or purified, in purgatory.

. Our salvation has been bought and paid for by Christ's suffering and death on Calvary. We can lose our salvation though by sinning. When we sin, we are turning away for God and choosing our own way as opposed to His way. We are choosing life without Him. We are all sinners though and thankfully for us, God grants us His mercy and forgiveness and all we have to do is turn back to Him. We are still stained by that sin we committed though even if we are forgiven. There has to be some way to have that stain removed from us prior to entering Heaven. Purgatory is that way that we are purified to free us from the "temporal punishment of sin."

The Church teaches that prior to getting into Heaven we have to be purified. It doesn't deny Christ's sacrifice or what
it did for us. Secondly, we need to be careful that we don't just aim for purgatory----we might miss.