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March 12, 2023What is purgatory? What does our One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic Church teach about Purgatory? I will attempt to bring some clarity.
First, I’m sure many of you reading this have heard of “limbo” before. There is no such thing as “Limbo.” I know many good and holy religious sisters may have taught you, your parents, and even grandparents about “limbo,” but it doesn’t exist and was never an official teaching of the Church. Limbo was taught for a long time in the United States as a place where children go if they die before receiving the Sacrament of Baptism. It is my opinion and assumption that this teaching became popular as a way to comfort parents who lost a child before their baptism. Limbo does not exist, there is only Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory. Today we will discuss purgatory.
While there are no explicit mentions of purgatory in the Scriptures, the belief of purgatory comes from our understanding of who God is: Love (1 John 4:8). You can read a series of quotes that theologians and saints attribute to purgatory in the scriptures here: Psalm 66:12; Isaiah 4:4; Micha 7:9; Malachi 3:3; 2 Maccabees 12:44; Matthew 5:22 & 26; Matthew 12:32; 1 Corinthians 3:11-15; Hebrews 12:14; and Revelation 21:27. All of these helped our Church gain a better understanding of purgatory, but again I remind you the belief in purgatory comes from our understanding of who God is: Love. I can’t stress enough that God is Love. He can’t be anything else.
Knowing that God is Love, it makes sense that Love would offer one last chance for a soul to be purified of its sinfulness before entering the Kingdom of Heaven. Purgatory is the last stop for unpurified souls to be cleansed of their sinfulness so that we can enter heaven as clean as we were on the day of our Baptism. It’s important to know and remember that sin is never a one-time event. Every time we sin we dirty our souls. The more serious (or bigger) the sin, the more serious the stain of dirt. The Sacrament of Reconciliation forgives the sin but does not remove all the dirt that came with the sin. Think of it this way, over the summer we had a shaving cream fight with our Youth Group. We were all completely covered in shaving cream and needed to use our rectory hose to wash off before getting into cars. The hose took care of most of the shaving cream, but not all. Two days later I was still finding dried shaving cream lodged in my ear canal. Confession forgives the sin, but prayer and penance help clean up the dirt and grime left behind.
The Sacraments, prayer, fasting, almsgiving, and penance help clean our souls over time and our souls need to be completely clean before we can enter the kingdom of heaven. Purgatory is a way for us to be completely cleaned through purification. Many artists and saints talk about purgatory being a place of fire where we’re cleansed…I don’t know if it will be as dramatic as that, but I do know purgatory is a period of cleansing and purification. Making it to purgatory means we will one day be in heaven, but if we want to shorten our “time” in purgatory, we must begin to take the Sacraments, prayer, fasting, almsgiving, and penance seriously. Doing those things now, while we’re on earth, will clean our souls as best as possible, and prohibit us from committing major sins before the Lord decides to call us home.
Lastly, the risk we run by not cleaning our souls and not going to Confession is tricking our body and mind to think sin is ok and that some sins are in fact good things. Once we convince ourselves that something sinful is a “good,” then we will also be easily convinced that the Devil is an alright guy who is misunderstood and why not join him for eternity in hell? Is it really that bad? It is. Don’t believe his lies. Follow Jesus.
