PURGATORY:
AVOIDING IT!
“Nothing unclean shall enter
[Heaven]” (Revelation 21:27)
One of the most popular Christian
apologists and theologians in recent times was CS Lewis. He wrote in one of his
books: “I believe in Purgatory” and “Of course I pray for the dead”. He went on
to say:
“Our souls demand
Purgatory, don’t they? Would it not break the heart if God said to us, ‘it is
true, my son, that your breath smells and your rags drip with mud and slime,
but we are charitable here and no one will upbraid you with these things, nor
draw away from you. Enter into the joy’? Should we not reply, ‘With submission,
sir, and if there is no objection, I’d rather be cleaned first.’ It may hurt,
you know’ – ‘Even so, sir.’
“I assume that the process of
purification will normally involve suffering. Partly from tradition; partly
because most real good has been done me in this life has involved it. But I
don’t think the suffering is the purpose of the purgation. I can well believe
that the people neither much worse nor much better than I will suffer less than
I or more … The treatment given will be the one required, whether it hurts
little or much.” (1)
Professor Jerry Walls of Houston
Baptist University said that “Lewis took seriously and literally the idea of
God making people perfect, not just treating them as if they were perfect. And
the process of transformation – sanctification – long and painful he stressed”.
(2) We read in Acts that “We must endure many hardships to enter the Kingdom of
God”. (Acts 14:22) But lest we get despondent let us never forget Galatians
5:22 the fruits of the Holy Spirit. They do not have an expiry date and are thankfully
with us all the way! That is love, joy, peace etc.
ST CATHERINE OF GENOA: Sean Connolly maintains that “one
of theology’s most remarkable presentations of purgatory even to this day comes
from the visions of St Catherine of Genoa (1447-1510) an Italian housewife”.
Pope Benedict XVI praises her valuable insights in Spe Salvi – his
document on Hope.
Connolly
continues:
“St Catherine’s [Treatise on
Purgatory] describes the soul as voluntarily choosing purgatory so as to
prepare itself fully for union with God. There is no sense of compulsion,
except that of the beloved’s compulsion in wanting to look her best for her
lover. As the [Treatise] puts it:
‘As for paradise, God has placed no
doors there. Whoever wishes to enter does so. All-merciful God stands there
with his arms open, wanting to receive us into his glory. I also see however,
that the divine essence is so pure and light-filled--- much more than we can
imagine--- that the soul that has but the slightest imperfection would rather
throw itself into a thousand hells than appear thus before the divine
presence’.
Connolly
says that this position is “remarkably similar to Lewis”. Or possibly it would
be more accurate to say that Lewis is remarkably similar to St Catherine!
Because Lewis as a voracious reader was very familiar with the great Italian
classics and also was fluent in Latin. In fact he corresponded in Latin for
years with an Italian priest who is now a Blessed – Fr Giovanni Calabria.
Connolly
continues that “the souls in purgatory endure suffering, certainly, but
suffering understood as the pain of realizing that something in them might be
displeasing or unattractive to God. Again as the [Treatise] notes:
‘Not
that those souls dwell on their suffering; they dwell rather on the resistance
they feel in themselves against the will of God, against His intense and pure
love bent on nothing but drawing them up to him”. (3)
DANTE & NEWMAN: In Letters to Malcom Chiefly on
Prayer, CS, Lewis argued that the true Christian position on purgatory resurfaces
in Cardinal Newman’s Dream of Gerontius. “There if I remember rightly” Lewis
comments, “the saved soul, at the very foot of the throne, begs to be taken
away and cleansed. It cannot bear for a moment longer ‘with its darkness to
affront that light’. Religion has reclaimed Purgatory”. (Letters, no 20).
CS
Lewis also liked Dante’s picture in the Purgatory section of his Divine Comedy.
He didn’t like the way some later writers presented Purgatory as what he called
‘temporary Hell’.
St
Bede the Venerable envisaged Purgatory as a mountain to be climbed and not a
pit to be swallowed up in. This probably influenced Dante.
The
official teaching of the Church on Purgatory is to be found briefly in the
Catechism of the Catholic Church 1030- 1032:
The Final Purification, or Purgatory:
1030 All
who die in God’s grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are
indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo
purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of
heaven.
1032 The
Church gives the name Purgatory to this final purification of the elect,
which is entirely different from the punishment of the damned. The Church
formulated her doctrine of faith on Purgatory especially at the Councils of
Florence and Trent. The tradition of the Church, by reference to certain texts
of Scripture, speaks of a cleansing fire (1 Cor. 3:15; 1 Pet 1:7):
“As for certain lesser faults, we
must believe that before the Final Judgement, there is a purifying fire. He who
is Truth says that whoever utters blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will be
pardoned neither in this age nor in the age to come. (Matthew 12:32) From this
sentence we understand that certain offenses can be forgiven in this age, but
certain others in the age to come”. (St Gregory the Great (540-604 AD)
1032 This
teaching is also based on the practice of prayer for the dead, already
mentioned in Sacred Scripture: “Therefore [Judas Maccabeus] made atonement
for the dead that they might be delivered from their sin. (2 Maccabees
12:46) From the beginning the Church has honoured the memory of the dead and
offered prayers in suffrage for them, above all the Eucharistic sacrifice,
so that, thus purified, they may attain the beatific vision of God. The Church
also commends almsgiving, indulgences and works of penance undertaken on behalf
of the dead:
“Let us help and commemorate them. If
Job’s sons were purified by their father’s sacrifice, why would we doubt that
our offerings for the dead bring them some consolation? Let us not hesitate to
help those who have died and offer our prayers for them”. (St John Chrysostom
344 -407 AD)
As regards the text above from the second
book of Maccabees, this is the earliest reference in Old Testament literature
to the beautiful Jewish custom of praying Mourners’ Kaddish for the dead because
“it is a good and holy thing to pray for the dead” (2 Macc. 12:45). It meant
praying daily for eleven months and on the anniversary of the deceased.
JUDAISM & PURGATORY:
In Judaism, there is a place of
purification where, according to some traditions, most sinners spend up to a
year before release.
The view of purgatory can be found in
the teaching of the Shammaites: “In the last judgement day there shall be three
classes of souls: the righteous shall at once be written down for the life
everlasting; the wicked, for Gehenna; but those whose virtues and sins
counterbalance one another shall go down to Gehenna and float up and down until
they rise purified; for of them it is said: ‘I will bring the third part into
the fire and refine them as silver is refined, and try them as gold is tried’
[Zech. XIII. 9.]; also, ‘He [the Lord] bringeth down to Sheol and bringeth up
again” (1 Sam. Ii. 6). The Hillelites seem to have had no purgatory;
Still they speak of an intermediate
state. (4)
Fr.
Matthew Linn SJ In his book Healing the Greatest Hurt writes:
“Not only did ancient Jewish
tradition include the living praying for the deceased, but it also asked the
deceased to pray for the living.
‘The
practice of praying for the intercession of the dead is of early origin. Caleb
on reaching Hebron visited the cave of Macpelah, and prayed to the patriarch
[Abraham] to be saved from cooperating in the conspiracy of the scouts sent by
Moses to make a report of the conditions of the Holy Land [Sotah 34b]. The Talmud
mentions visiting the cemetery to request the dead to pray for the living’.
(To’an 16b)
Thus
at the time of Jesus there is growing rabbinical support for the doctrine of
the Communion of the Saints where living and dead prayerfully help each other.
Although ‘communion of saints’ is a Christian term, the concept is rooted in
the Hebrew idea of corporate personality” Matthew Linn maintains.
The
Jews of the old regarded the deceased saints Moses, Samuel and Jeremiah as
intervening with God on behalf of the living (cf. 2 Macc. 15:14)
Praying
for the dead is still the Jewish custom because in 1997 two helicopters crashed
in Israel killing 73 people and the chief rabbis called all mourners to the
Western Wall to pray for the dead.
THE EARLY CHURCH
The
early church continued this Jewish practice – that “it is a good and holy thing
to pray for the dead” as Jesus did not come to abolish the law but to bring it
to perfection. So we see an early Christian writer Tertillian writing about the
year 211AD – just over 100 years after the death of St John the Apostle:
“We offer the sacrifice [of the
Eucharist] for the dead on their anniversaries”. Just like the Jewish custom.
Another
great Father of the early church St Augustine, around the year 387 AD was grieving
at the bedside of his dying mother Monica at Ostia in Italy because she as a
North African was dying in a foreign land far from home. His unconscious mother
Monica woke up out of her sleep at this point and said to Augustine and the
others there “Put this body wherever you like. Let that not bother you. I only
ask this that wherever you may be, you remember me at the altar of the Lord” -
that is at Eucharistic Sacrifice.
St
Augustine was to write later as a bishop: “The prayer of the faithful, the holy
sacrifice of the altar aid the faithful departed and move the Lord to deal with
them in mercy and kindness and this is the practice of the universal church
handed down by the Fathers”. St Augustine also said in The City of God
that “temporary punishments are suffered by some in this life only, by others
after death, but others both now and then; but all of them before that last and
strictest judgement” (21:13).
The Church’s teaching on Purgatory
comes from Holy Scripture and the Tradition.
1. Holy Scripture:
The
doctrine of Purgatory is implied in many places. Jesus assumes the doctrine
when he says: “whoever says a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven; but
whoever speaks against the Holy spirit
will not forgiven either in this age or in the age to come”
(Matt.
12:32) There must be a state, then, in which people are forgiven “in the age to
come”. Tradition calls that state Purgatory Dr Scott Hahn maintains. (See also www.freerepublic.com The Early Church Fathers on Purgatory. Plus the Scriptural Basis in
details).
2. The Tradition:
The
traditional evidence in favour of prayers for the dead has been preserved:
A. In monumental inscriptions especially
those of the catacombs.
B. In ancient liturgies.
C. In Christian literature generally.
“So overwhelming is the witness of
the early Christian monuments in favour of prayer for the dead that no
historian any longer denies that the practice and the belief which the practice
implies were universal in the primitive Church. There was no break of
continuity in this respect between Judaism and Christianity” …
The
testimony of the early liturgies is in harmony with that of the monuments. All
without exception contain the commemoration of the faithful departed in the
mass. (www.freerepublic.com)
As
regards Christian literature, an early Father of the Church, Tertullian writing
about 210AD, and others, writes of visions that pious believers had of departed
souls seeking their help for release from their sufferings. Fr Michael Taylor
SJ comments:
“Though we might wonder whether those
visions reflect the actual circumstances of the dead, they seem to articulate a
developing consciousness of the part of the faithful that there is a place
where some souls are purified after death (presumably from the injurious
effects of their sins). (5)
A famous illustration of such visions
is Tretullian’s account of the acts of the martyrdom of the twenty-two-year-old
lady of nobility St Perpetua who died about 203AD. She had visions of her
deceased brother Dinocrates who obviously was suffering. This generous selfless
soul Perpetua who was in prison waiting to be thrown to the beasts immediately
took to storming the heavens with her prayers day and night until she got a
message that he was now at peace.
“Vision-stories
like Perpetua’s showed that Christian at this time believed that some of the
dead were suffering for their sins and imperfections (undergoing trials of one
sort or another). In addition these stories informed the living that they could
and should help the dead in their trials with their prayers and good works”
Taylor concludes.
PRAYING FOR THE DEAD:
The
Catechism of the Catholic Church quoted above states “From the beginning the
Church has honoured the memory of the dead and offered prayers in suffrage for
them, above all the Eucharistic sacrifice, so that, thus purified, they may
attain the beatific vision of God. The Church also commends almsgiving,
indulgences and works of penance undertaken on behalf of the dead”. (1032)
In
the early Church there was no worship without the sacrifice of the mass. The
mass is a memorial of a sacrifice and so by that fact is a sacrifice. (cf. CCC
1366) It was regarded as the most efficacious form of prayer especially for the
dead and as we can see above it was offered constantly for the deceased.
The
Catechism goes on to explain indulgences in sections
1478-9:
“An indulgence is obtained through
the Church who, by virtue of the power of binding and loosing granted her by
Christ Jesus, intervenes in favour of individual Christians and opens for them
the treasury of the merits of Christ and the saints to obtain from the Father
of mercies the remission of the temporal punishments due for their sins. Thus
the Church does not want simply to come to the aid of those Christians, but
also to spur them to works of devotion, penance and charity.
“Since the faithful
departed now being purified are also members of the same communion of saints,
one way we can help them is to obtain indulgences for them, so that the
temporal punishments due for their sins may be remitted. (1478-9)
Or more simply
An indulgence is what we receive when
the Church lessens the temporal (lasting only for a short time) penalties to
which we may be subject even though our sins have been forgiven.
SIN DISPLEASES GOD:
When a person sins he acquires
certain liabilities: the liability of guilt and the liability of punishment.
When someone repents, God removes his guilt (Is. 1:18) and any eternal
punishment (Rom. 5:9) but temporal penalties may remain.
Fr Taylor writes:
“We
have only to recall the opening story of the Bible. Adam sinned by disobeying
God. God’s reaction to this sin was not indifference or unconcern. God punished
Adam severely (Gn. 3:17-19). Sin not only brought about estrangement between
him and God. The act deserved punishment and created in Adam a need to “pay a
price” for his sin. Later in Genesis we find the story of Noah. There God
reacted to the sins of the people by destroying them in the flood (Gn. 6-9).
Again, sin is seen to have effects that call for punishment.
“Later
still we find God forgiving the doubting Moses, but also depriving him
admittance to the promised land (Nm. 20:12). David, too, is forgiven his sin of
adultery, but suffers the death of the child who resulted from it (2 Sm.
12:13-14).
“The
lesson of these stories is clear --- sin displeases God and sinners must suffer
punishment and “pay a price” for committing it. Countless times Scripture
teaches the lesson that sin is evil. Even so, it can be forgiven, but sin has
effects on the sinner and those sinned against. For full restoration to
spiritual health, sinners must address and overcome these effects. If they seem
to neglect or escape the consequences of their sins, others somehow must assume
the task of doing this. The need for this is at the heart of the gospel:
Yet it was our infirmities that he bore, our
sufferings that he endured,
While we thought of him stricken, as one smitten by God and
afflicted.
But he was pierced for our offenses, crushed for our
sins,
Upon him was the chastisement that makes us whole,
by his stripes we are healed (Is. 53:4-5).
There is also one mediator between God and the human race,
Christ Jesus, himself human, who gave himself as ransom for all (1 Tim
2:5-6)
“Since these “sin stories” associate purification or atonement
of some sorts with the full forgiveness of sin, one can find some grounds for
belief in a “place” like purgatory. When Christians actually come to believe in
purgatory, it will be seen not so much as a “place” for the forgiveness of
unforgiven sin, as the process through which sinners work to expiate the
effects of their sins which have not yet been fully requited at death. They
should go to God not just forgiven; ideally they should go to him cleansed and
free from the infections sin has worked on their souls”. (6)
NOUGHT FOR YOUR COMFORT:
So
how do we go to God cleansed and free from the infections sin has worked on our
souls? How do we avoid suffering in Purgatory for what can be a long time? No
classic texts on Purgatory can be found that omit the pains of this place (or
process). Alas there is no nice, gentle, painless, user friendly Purgatory!
That’s why the saints throughout history warn us to avoid it like the plague.
Yes
St Catherine admitted there was joy in Purgatory and “that the only joy greater
than the joy of the souls in Purgatory is that of the saints in paradise. She
says that as the residue of their sins and selfishness gradually disappears,
the souls in purgatory grow steadily in happiness as God’s love flows into
their souls. Through the purifying process they are gaining facility in their
ability to love selflessly”. (7)
But
in the same chapter II St Catherine says that the souls in Purgatory “endure
extreme pain” and in chapter VIII “that there is in Purgatory as much pain as
in Hell”! Does this not sound paradoxical: joy and pain? Perhaps we need to
remember a woman in childbirth can experience both.
Another
paradox is that the most unpalatable book on Purgatory by Fr F.X.
Schouppe SJ subtitled Explained By The Lives and Legends of the Saints
must be the most popular in history! It gets five-star ratings on Amazon and
Goodreads sites and nary a bad word, yet it was first published over a hundred
years ago. Admittedly some of the ‘legends’ are a bit dodgy and would not pass
muster with the Bollandists! For example the Sabbatine Bull of John XXII.
One
Amazon Customer Reviewer said “This Book will shake you up and get you focused.
It is not exactly easy to ingest … in fact this is my second copy, since I
threw away the first one after getting a bit angry, upset and dismayed by it.
Why?? Because it is eminently truthful and hard to face. If you are Catholic,
this is basic, foundational stuff that is not always made clear by our timid
church leaders … it is not for the faint of heart”! (5.4.2017)
From
his many books and private letters it is obvious that CS Lewis meditated a lot
on Purgatory and was not mealy mouthed about the discomforts. He wrote after
the devastating death of his wife Joy: “The tortures occur. If they are
unnecessary, then there is no God or a bad one. If there is a good God, then
these tortures are necessary. For no even moderately good Being could possibly inflict
or permit them if they weren’t. Either way, we’re for it. What do people mean when
they say, “I am not afraid of God because I know He is good?” Have they never
even been to a dentist?” (8)
“In
Mere Christianity, Lewis reminded readers of Christ’s admonition to his
followers to ‘count the cost’ before submitting to his lordship.
‘You have free will, and if you
choose, you can push me away’. Lewis wrote, expanding on an imagined
conversation between Christ and a person considering becoming his disciple.
‘But if you do not push away, understand that I am going to see this job through.
“Whatever suffering it may cost you
in your earthly life, whatever inconceivable purification it may cost you after
death, whatever it may cost me, I will never rest, nor let you rest, until you
are literally perfect – until my Father can say without reservation that he is
well pleased with you, as he said he was well pleased with me. This I can do
and will do. But I will not do anything less”.
Professor
Jerry Walls, mentioned above, sees this reference to becoming ‘perfect’ as a
reference to sanctification or transformation that all Christians have to
undergo. “Every Christian is to become a little Christ” Lewis wrote and “the
whole purpose of becoming a Christian is simply nothing else”. (.)
AVOIDING PURGATORY BY OBEDIENCE TO
THE WORD:
Jesus
is the Word of God. He stated that “the words I have spoken will be [the] judge
on the last day” (John 12:48) This includes all the Word of God from Genesis to
Revelation. St Peter in his first letter repeats Leviticus 11:45 when he says
“make a habit of obedience: be holy in all you do since it is the Holy One who has
called you and Scripture says Be holy for I am holy”. (1 Peter 1:15-16) Jesus
insists ‘You must be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect’. (Matt. 5:48).
Jesus
repeats in Mark’s Gospel:
Deuteronomy 6:5. “You must love God
with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your strength” (Mk 12:30)
We are warned in Hebrews that “without holiness no one can see God” (Heb.
12:14) and by St Peter that we must “share in the divine nature” (2 Pet. 1:4)
What is called divinisation or theosis in Greek. We share in divinity by grace
and not by nature obviously.
Without
this transformation, sanctification by the Holy Spirit, growth in holiness we
will be a very long time in Purgatory. Better do it NOW! CS Lewis loved The
Imitation of Christ by Thomas A Kempis who wrote: “It is better to get rid
of sins now, doing away with your bad habits, than to wait to have them purged
hereafter. We truly deceive ourselves by our unrestrained self – love”. (Book
1, Chapter 24)
St
Catherine of Genoa reputedly said something similar: “He who purifies himself
from his faults in the present life satisfies with a penny a debt of a thousand
pounds; and he who waits until the other life to discharge his debts, consents
to pay a thousand pounds for that which he might before have paid with a
penny”. (10)
HOW TO
GAIN A PLENARY INDULGENCE
“Gain every possible indulgence and
become a Saint” (St Alphonsus of Liguori)
An Indulgence is the remission before
God of the temporal punishment due to be suffered for sins that have already
been forgiven. In granting Indulgences, the Church, as minister of the
Redemption, authoritatively dispenses and applies the treasury of the satisfaction
won by Christ and the Saints. The temporal punishment due for forgiven sins
must be suffered either on earth or in Purgatory. A Partial Indulgence
remits part of the temporal punishment due; a Plenary Indulgence remits
all the temporal punishment due. Indulgences can always be offered for the
Souls in Purgatory, rather than for ourselves. However, Indulgences offered for
the Souls are efficacious by way of suffrage, that is, depending on
God’s decision, since the Church on earth does not have jurisdiction over souls
in Purgatory.
Jesus said: “Store up treasures for
yourselves in Heaven”. (Mt. 6:19)
Four Ways
To Gain A Plenary Indulgence
A Catholic, being in the state of
grace, can gain a Plenary Indulgence by many different prayers and works
of piety, but these four are worthy of special mention:
1. Making a visit to the Blessed
Sacrament to
adore for at least one-half hour.
2. Spending at least one-half hour
reading Sacred Scripture, as spiritual reading, with the veneration due to the Word of God.
3. Making the Way of the Cross. This includes walking from Station
to Station. (At publicly held Stations, if this cannot be done in an orderly
way, at least the leader must move from Station to Station.) No specific
prayers are required, but devout meditation on the Passion and Death of
Our Lord is required (not necessarily on the individual Stations).
4. Recitation of the Rosary (of at least 5 decades), with devout
meditation on the Mysteries, in addition to the vocal recitation. It must be
said in a church, family group, religious community, or pious association.
Additional
Requirements
In addition to performing the
specified work, these three conditions are required:
1. Confession;
2. Holy Communion;
3. Prayer for the Holy Father’s
intentions.
(One Our Father and one Hail Mary suffice.)
The three conditions may be fulfilled several days before or
after the performance of the prescribed work; it is fitting, however that
Communion be received and the prayer for the intention of the Holy Father be
recited on the same day the work is performed.
In addition, to gain a Plenary Indulgence, a person’s mind
and heart must be free from all attachment to sin, even venial sin. If one tries to gain a Plenary
Indulgence, but fails to fulfil all requirements, the indulgence will only be
partial.
Only one Plenary Indulgence may be gained per day, except
that, at “the moment of death,” a person may gain a second Plenary Indulgence
for that day.
If we generously offer Indulgences for the Souls in
Purgatory, we may hope to obtain relief or release for many of them, in accord
with God’s holy will. In gratitude, they may well obtain for us many great
favours, through the Communion of Saints.
(The norms in this are from the official Enchiridion of
Indulgences (1968) and the Apostolic Constitution The Doctrine of
Indulgences (1967)
REFERENCES
1. Cs Lewis, Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly
on Prayer, Chapter 20.
2. Jerry Walls, CS Lewis Believed in
Purgatory for Heaven’s Sake. www
3. Sean Connolly, Inklings of Heaven: CS
Lewis and Eschatology
4. Wikipedia. Purgatory.
5. Michael Taylor SJ, Purgatory, 1998,
p26.
6. Taylor, pp. 20-21
7. Taylor, p 56.
8. CS Lewis, A Grief Observed, Bantam,
pp. 48-51
9. J. Walls
10. Fr. F.X. Schouppe, SJ Purgatory:
Explained By the Lives and Legends of the Saints,
Tan, 1986, pp. 367 -8
FURTHER READING
Desire for God and Holiness
Conversion and Baptism in the Holy
Spirit
Confirmation Reflections
Life in the Spirit Seminars.
All
on Google: sine-glossa.blogspot.com
