Fore & Aft Newsletter Vol. II No.5 - July - September 2000

Everyday of our lives, we are faced with the stark reality of our human mortality. We can die anytime.

But what if, when we die, the particular judgment finds us neither severed from God by mortal sin, nor yet with that perfect purity of soul required for union with the all-holy God? This indeed, is very likely to be the case, if we have been content to remain upon the level of spiritual mediocrity: parsimonious in prayer, dodging self-denial, making compromise with the world. Our mortal sins, if any, may have been forgiven in the sacrament of penance (do we not say, in the Creed, "I believe in…the forgiveness of sins"?); but if ours has been a "comfortable" religion, it is not likely that we shall be capable, in our last moments, of that perfect and selfless love for God which is required for a plenary indulgence. So here we are in Judgment: neither deserving of hell nor fit for heaven. What becomes of us?

It is here that the doctrine of purgatory manifests its eminent reasonableness. Even had the doctrine of purgatory not come down to us from Christ and his apostles through the tradition of the Church, reason alone would indicate that there must be some final process of purification to cleanse away whatever lesser imperfections might yet stand between the soul and God. This is the function of that state of temporary suffering which we call purgatory. There is in purgatory, as there is in hell, a "pain of sense," but just as the essential suffering of hell is everlasting separation from God, so also the essential suffering of purgatory lies in the excruciating agony which the soul must suffer at being delayed, even for an instant, from union with God. The soul, let us remember, was made for God. Because in this life the body serves (we might say) as an insulator, we do not feel the terrific attraction that God has for the soul. Some of the saints feel that attraction faintly, but most of us feel it hardly at all. However, the moment the soul leaves the body, it is exposed to the full power of God’s "pull" upon the soul. Crazed with hunger-with hunger for God-the soul beats itself against the barrier of its own remaining imperfections until finally it is purged by the very agony of its own restraint-and the barrier falls, and God is there!

It is consoling to note that the soul in purgatory suffers joyfully, even though the suffering is of an intensity unknown this side of judgment. The great difference between the suffering of hell and the suffering of purgatory is the hopelessness of hell’s eternal separation against the certainty of purgatory’s release. The soul in purgatory would not want to appear before God in its present state, and so there is joy in its agony-joy in the knowledge of the ecstasy to come.

It is evident that no one can know "how long" purgatory lasts for any individual soul. I have put "how long" in quotes because, while there is duration beyond the grave, there is no "time" as we know it; no nights and days, no hours and minutes. However, whether we measure purgatory by duration or by intensity (and an instant of twisting torture can be worse than a year of mild discomfort), the fact remains that the soul in purgatory cannot lessen or shorten its own sufferings. But we the living can help that soul, by the mercy of God; and the frequency of our remembrance, and the endurance of our remembrance, whether of an individual soul or of all the faithful departed, will be measured only by our love.

Fore & Aft Newsletter Vol. II No.5 - July - September 2000