Purgatory

[Guest Bugmotel]

This is one area of the Catholic faith that continues to confuse me. Not only can I not find any scriptural references to it (Jesus while he was on earth never once mentioned it, and I can't see where the apostles did either), but it seems to me to be in contrast with Christ himself.

It seems to me that Christ, the Lord and Savior, sacrificed himself for ALL our sins, past, present and future. He said He was the sacrificial lamb. So, the mere invention of purgatory seems to fly in the face of His supreme sacrifice. It's as if to say, "No, the Living God was not enough for salvation from sin. You need to have more." Christ himself said many times that it was complete/finished when he died. So why purgatory?

[Theologian in Training]

Ok, there are a couple of levels to your question.

Purgatory is either a place or a state at which a person is purified of their attachments on earth, as well as any "residual" sin that resulted from confessed mortal sin. Since nothing impure can enter Heaven, we need to make sure we are purified of all those things that hinder us from a full, undivided, and loving relationship with the Blessed Trinity. Scripture alludes to this need with its allusions to gold being tried by fire. In other words, in order for gold to shed its impurities it must be put in fire. We too are also purified by fire, so that our iniquities, our impurities, can be cleansed making us acceptable to enter Heaven. Purgatory, in this sense, is not trying to infer that Christ's redemptive act was wanting or lacking in any way, but rather, unless we were a Saint on earth, we need to be cleansed of those things that keep us from a full union with God.

Now, please understand that Purgatory is for a person who has died in the state of "grace," whereby they do not have a mortal sin on their conscience. Purgatory's function, therefore, is to ensure that person is fully worthy to enter the kingdom of Heaven.

As to the second part of your question, you seem to be trying to reconcile the Catholic belief in Purgatory with the non-Catholic belief of a "once saved always saved" concept of salvation. This poses a difficulty because though Catholics recognize the expiation of sins through Christ's redeeming act, we do not believe that as a result of this act our salvation is thus assured. Yes, we have been saved, but we work out our "personal salvation" with "fear and trembling." We recognize that God has given us free will, from which we are able to choose good or evil, and even though Jesus has saved us, we do not have the assurance that we will make it to Heaven. In this sense, therefore, your question is more about salvation than Purgatory itself.

Hope that helps.

God Bless

[cappie]

When we are truly sorry for our sins, we know that God forgives them. But usually we look upon the all just God as still requiring of us restitution for the damage caused by our sins. Perhaps in a similar way if someone offends us and apologises we forgive them, but for example ,if they break say one of our posessions we might like to think they will make restitution.

Admittedly all language by which we speak of God and of our relationship to him is inadequate. looking at Purgatory, it seems helpful to picture our salvation as a growth into the likeness of God. As children of God, we become, as far as created beings can, more like our Heavenly Father in whose image we have been created. And finally, in Heaven we arrive at a face-to- face union with God.

But how can we ever come close enough to being like God in this brief span of life on earth? Our process of spiritual growth seems slow and uneven. Each time we have moved forward three steps, we seem to slip back two steps. Our whole life is a long series of moral successes and failures, of regressions and conversions. For this reason, it seems that the process of becoming holy and worthy of God cannot stop with death. A certain continuation is needed after even death.

Perhaps this episode from the Gospels will prove enlightening. It is the morning when Peter and his friends had worked all night fishing and caught nothing. Jesus told them to throw out their nets one more time, and the number they caught almost broke the net. First, Peter was simply stunned at what had happened. Then he blurted out: "Leave me, Lord. I am a sinful man." (Lk 5:8). When Peter came suddenly face to face with the power and mystery of holiness, his own inadequacy and nothingness and sinfulness overwhelmed him. The disparity, the gap between his holiness and that of Jesus filled him with pain. He could not stand to be in such holy company, He asked Jesus to leave him.

Peter's experience can give us an insight into purgatory. After death we will be confronted by the majesty and beauty and goodness of God's presence. We will realise then with total clarity, how far we fall short of what God made us capable of being. That realisation will be a suffering for us. It is the punishment we endure for having been imperfect on earth. We will long, we will yearn, to be what we should be. The image of fire used explains well this inner suffering of love. This inner burning, which is purgatory, is not some arbitrary punishment unrealted to the process of our growth towards God, but is the final stage of that growth.

I am not too keen in using bits of the Bible as proof texting but here are some of the texts which I have found help me

Biblical evidences:

1) II Maccabees, 12:46 is the main biblical text incorporating the Jewish belief in the necessity of prayer and sacrifice for the dead. The passage describes how Judas, the military commander, “took up a collection from all his men, totalling about four pounds of silver and sent it to Jerusalem to provide for a sin offering” (II Macc. 12: 43). "If he had not believed that the dead would be raised, it would have been foolish and useless to pray for them." The Jewish Talmud states that prayers for the dead will help to bring greater rewards and blessings to them.

2) St. Paul seems to have shared this traditional Jewish belief when, on the death of his supporter Onesiphorus, he prayed: “May the Lord grant him mercy on that Day” (II Timothy: 1:18).

3) Matthew 12:32 hints at the possibility of sins being forgiven after death, when Jesus refers to the impossibility of forgiveness of sins against the Holy Spirit "in the age to come." St. Augustine and St. Gregory interpret this phrase, "in the age to come,” as a reference to purgatory.

4) In I Corinthians, 3:15, St. Paul speaks of a "test by fire" after death to prove the worth of our work in this world: "But if your work is burnt up, then you will lose it; but you yourself will be saved, as if you had escaped through the fire.” Several of the early Church Fathers considered this a reference to a process of purification after death.

5) The Fathers of the Church also interpret the statement in Zachariah 13:19 as a reference to purgatory: “And I will test the third that survives and will purify them as silver is purified by fire."