PURGATORY - THE FACTS

We have a very loving God.  He sent us His only Son who took upon Himself all of the sins of the world, past, present, and the sins yet to be committed.  All of these sins were forgiven when Jesus died on the Cross.  For this, we must be forever grateful.  But, if Jesus died and all sins were forgiven why would a place like Purgatory be needed?  Isn't this slapping the crucified Christ and telling Him that His saving death was not enough?  Actually, no.  Read further and hopefully, my poor attempt at an explanation will help you understand.

Once I was playing softball in a vacant lot across from my childhood home.  In Chicago, we play Clincher softball.  A Clincher is a large softball and it is played using underhand slow pitch. I was up at bat and the pitcher sent me a beautiful pitch, it was coming in low and slow, just where I liked them to be.  I swung the bat but was a bit too early and I tipped the ball to the first base side and it hit the fence of the house behind our field and went through a window making a crash that I swear was heard around the world.  Suddenly, I was the only person standing in the field.  There was no point in running away, the neighbor knew who played in the field.  He came out and surveyed the damage.  I looked at him and was very scared. He saw I was alone and said to not worry, that this could be fixed. and that I was forgiven because accidents happen.  He measured the window and said he would be back soon with the glass.  Shortly he came back and he removed the broken pieces, laid in a fresh bead of putty and the window was as good as new.  He then turned to me and gave me the receipt for the glass and asked if I would please ask my parents to give me the money for the glass.  I looked at the receipt, it was for five whole dollars - a fortune for a kid who was making twenty-five cents a week for an allowance.  I gulped and went to see my Dad. There was no sense in seeing Mom about this, she would just send me to Dad.  He said he saw what happened, looked at the receipt and pulled out his wallet and gave me the five dollars.  He did not holler, he said accidents happen and he would front the money and I could do extra chores to pay him back. 

So in our little story, we have an offense, a broken piece of glass.  We have repair of the issue and forgiveness, but we still had to deal with repaying my father for the money the glass cost.  I was forgiven, but the effect on the family budget had to be cured, I had to restore what I had broken. These extra chores can be likened in a very imperfect way to purgatory.  We all sin on earth and our sins are all forgiven but we have left on our soul the effects of our sins. The sin is gone, but the stain, caused by our attachment to sin, remains.  It is this stain that those of us in Purgatory are getting rid of.  Heaven is a place where no evil is allowed to exist because it is a place where we see God face to face.  

When we die in the grace of God, we will still have all of these stains that have to be bleached out. For example, when you died, you hated George because he stole your pencil (or whatever) and you left earth with this on your soul.  What would happen if you met George in heaven?  Discord at the very least would follow.  So you, yourself, will choose to go to purgatory because in your love for God you will know that this burden needs to be fully released.  

Purgatory is a painful place.  The pain comes from the fire of God's love and your longing to be with Him in heaven.  Purgatory is also a joyful place because all of the people there know that at one point in the future this suffering will end and they will be with God in heaven.  The souls in Purgatory pray unceasingly. The sad part is that they cannot pray themselves out of Purgatory.  The time for making up for temporal punishment for sins is while we are on earth through our prayers and sacrifices.  So the Poor Souls, some who have been there for centuries as we reckon time, need our help, our prayers, and our sacrifices to help them escape Purgatory and enter heaven earlier than they might if depending on themselves. Purgatory is a joyful place.  If you were to offer a poor soul the chance to come back to earth, he or she would reject that choice because of the great happiness they feel at being assured that they cannot offend God anymore and that soon they will be with Him face to face. That joy is greater than any joy we can experience on earth. 

How can we help them?  Well, we can offer our own prayers and sacrifices and we can offer them our mass attendance and the grace from every time we take the Holy Eucharist. The Mass and the Eucharist are the most efficient ways.  From the website "Our Catholic Prayers"  A link to their website is below. 

In purgatory, the souls of many of those who have died in God’s grace undergo purification so that they may enter heaven. The Prayer of St. Gertrude, below, is one of the most famous of the prayers for souls in purgatory. St. Gertrude the Great (pictured at left) was a Benedictine nun and mystic who lived in the 13th century. According to tradition, our Lord promised her that 1000 souls would be released from purgatory each time it is said devoutly.

 

Eternal Father, I offer Thee the Most Precious Blood of Thy Divine Son, Jesus, in union with the masses said throughout the world today, for all the holy souls in purgatory, for sinners everywhere, for sinners in the universal church, those in my own home and within my family. Amen

Our Catholic Prayers WEbsite