What Are You Looking For? Part 2: The Liturgy and the Sacraments

Reconciliation: Purgatory

Reconciliation: Purgatory

                This may seem like an odd topic to find as part of the Sacrament of Reconciliation, but if you stop and think about it, it makes perfect sense.  Reconciliation, after all, deals with sin, both mortal and venial.  And there are consequences for our sin.  To a Roman Catholic, the worst thing you could do is to die in a state of mortal sin.  If that happens, you go to hell.  This is not the eternal destination anyone should desire.  Hell was not created for man, or man for hell.  It was created for Satan and his legions of fallen angels.  But man can freely choose to go to hell for all of eternity.  That’s one option. 

                The other option for mankind is heaven.  As much as we all like the thought that everyone who is a “good person” will get to heaven, that’s not the case.  Heaven is reserved for those who have freely chosen to love God and to follow him throughout their life.  Heaven is where we will enjoy what St. Paul is referring to when he says, “At present we see indistinctly, as in a mirror, but then face to face.”  (1 Corinthians 13: 12 NABRE)  St. Paul is speaking of what Catholics call the beatific vision when we see God face to face.  That is God’s eternal desired destination for every person who ever has or ever will live.  It’s up to us to choose which one we want, and then live accordingly.

                But what if we don’t live that way?  In the posts on reconciliation, I wrote about the necessity of confessing all mortal sins out loud to a priest, of receiving absolution and of completing the assigned penance.  What if you don’t have time before you die to complete your penance?  Or what if you die with venial sins still on your soul?  Remember, venial sin doesn’t sever your relationship with God, but it does hurt it.  And God is holy.  No one with any sin can enter into the presence of God.  Since heaven is all about entering the presence of God, where do people go who still are in a state of venial sin?

                According to the Catholic Church, when we die, as long as we are not in a state of mortal sin we will either, by virtue of the holiness of our lives here on earth, be granted immediate entrance into the beatific vision or we will go to Purgatory.  In recent history, we have seen two great examples of holiness lived out before the world that, at least in our opinion, they would be guaranteed immediate entrance into heaven.  These people would be Bl. Mother Theresa of Calcutta and Bl. Pope John Paul II. 

                And then there are the rest of us.  We’re not in a state of mortal sin, but we haven’t achieved that level of holiness either.  If we were to die today, we would go to Purgatory.  Purgatory is the place where we are purified, purged of any remaining sin, so that we can enter into the presence of God.  I call it God’s time out.  Think of it this way, if your child misbehaves, they get punished.  As parents we forgive them, but they also have to learn that their behavior was wrong and not to do it again.  And they must complete their time out, or grounding, or whatever before they can come back and rejoin the family activity.  It’s the same with God.  Here on earth, we perform our penance after reconciliation.  That’s our punishment.  For venial sins, prayer, fasting and almsgiving are also penitential acts.  We also go through suffering.  As much as we hate suffering, the act of suffering purifies our souls.  The purer you want your soul to be, the more it will suffer.  Again, look at the lives of Bl. Mother Theresa and Bl. Pope John Paul II.  Neither of their lives was without great suffering, yet they suffered with great joy and changed the world in spite of, or maybe because of, their suffering. 

                But if we still are not totally pure when we die, we will then go to Purgatory.  St. Paul spoke of the purgation process when he wrote, “for no one can lay a foundation other than the one that is there, namely, Jesus Christ.  If anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, or straw, the work of each will come to light, for the Day will disclose it.  It will be revealed with fire, and the fire [itself] will test the quality of each one’s work.  If the work stands that someone built upon the foundation, that person will receive a wage.  But if someone’s work is burned up, that one will suffer loss; the person will be saved, but only as through fire.”  (1 Corinthians 3: 11-15 NABRE)

                What St. Paul is speaking of here are all the things we do in this life.  Our Christian deeds, our prayer, fasting, almsgiving, and all of those things, are the gold, silver and precious stones.  And we will be rewarded for those things.  All the other stuff, our venial sins, our pride, our arrogance, our attachment to things, anything that took God from the center of our life or clouded our spiritual vision, that’s the wood, hay and straw.  Those things are the venial sins that must be burned up before we enter into the presence of God. 

                Purgatory is the great equalizer.  It’s where the saint who struggled all of their life with various sins is purged before entering the beatific vision.  It’s where the greatest sinner who repents on their deathbed is purged of their lifetime of sin before entering the beatific vision.  For the Catholic Christian, there is only one way to avoid Purgatory.  That is to become a Saint.  Capital “S”.  Not another Mother Theresa or John Paul II.  That’s not what any of us have been called to be.  But we are all called to live our lives in such a way that when we die, those who know us will declare as the world did of Mother Theresa and John Paul II,” ___________ (insert your name here) was clearly a Saint.”   And not just a Saint, but a Great Saint!