Purgatory

My eternal plans have changed.

The Reason for Purgatory

Even though I was raised in the Catholic Church, I didn’t hear or think much about Purgatory. When I was an adult and chose Christ and His Church for myself, I studied and paid attention, and decided that Purgatory wasn’t such a bad thing. It’s a transition, I was informed by priests and scholars on television. Purgatory is like the outskirts of Heaven. You may have to go through it before you get to Paradise.

Knowing myself, I know that I need to be purified before my soul transitions into the eternal, pure presence of God. I need to be purged of my sins and attachments before I will be able to fully experience the unadulterated bliss of God’s love. That’s the purpose of Purgatory. It’s actually a great blessing from God. It means that those of us who are not fully prepared to leave earthly attachments and enter into Heaven will not necessarily fall into Hell. God allows us a state of transition, a purification period, during which our souls can be cleansed of any self-centeredness that may still be weighing us down — so long as we wholly desire to be united with God.

It’s like this. When our earthly bodies die, our souls are given one last choice: to love God or not to love God. If we angrily refuse to surrender to our Creator, then we condemn ourselves to eternal anger, horrendous misery forever. But if we desire to know and love God fully, to surrender to His merciful love, then we will be received into His Paradise. Some of us won’t be free and strong enough to make a straight shot like the great saints do. Rather, we’ll experience the painful truth of our sins, of all that has kept us from God in our earthly lives and all that may still be holding us back as our souls leave our earthly bodies. This crucial period enables us to be able to rise to the eternal life of God’s glory, completely purged of all of our sins and self-centeredness. So that we may be purified with only our faith, hope, and love remaining — St. Paul tells us that these alone never end — we must have our impurities burned off in Purgatory.

And I’m okay with that. In fact, I was planning on going to Purgatory.

At least, I was.

The Painful Truth about Purgatory

I had mentioned an obscure Saint in an earlier post, St. Veronica Giuliani. I watched a documentary film about her (see it HERE) and, I admit, was a bit repulsed by some of the things that she did for love of God and, I confess, even a bit dubious about the things that she is said to have experienced. As with many long programs, I took a break of a day or two somewhere in the middle since I can’t sit in my wheelchair for very long. Returning to the documentary, I found myself more open to the truth of the Saint. And what struck me the most was her vision of Purgatory.

It was horrible, terrible, the most horrendous thing that you can imagine. St. Veronica said that the pains of the most tortured martyr were nothing compared to the pains suffered in Purgatory. Nothing in earthly experience could come close to describing the horrific suffering experienced there. Nothing.

This went against the grain of what I had learned. Well, not completely. It’s not like the priests and scholars that I had heard had said that Purgatory was easy. It was my own way of thinking that made Purgatory seem not so bad. Purgatory is temporary — my mind clung to that — a gateway to Heaven. Closing my eyes to the earthly realm through death and then opening my spiritual eyes to eternal life, I might find myself in a place of longing for God. But I would find myself in a place. I would know that the afterlife is real. And I would recognize that God was cleansing me to make me ready for eternal bliss. So, I reasoned, I would be able to get through that transition without too much suffering, because I would know that God was lovingly bringing me to Him.

But I’m rethinking all of that now.

Yes, the souls in Purgatory are being loved by God, and their clinging sins and attachments are being burned by the fire of divine love. A beautiful image in a way — but also horrific. Do I really want to burn for an unspecified period of time? Do I really want to feel the full impact of my sins and selfishness — not in physical pain, but in spiritual pain? St. Veronica said that we here on Earth have no idea what purely spiritual pain feels like. If we knew, if we had even an inkling, we would do everything that we possibly can to avoid Purgatory. We would gladly suffer physical pains and ills here and now in order to avoid spiritual torments in the afterlife. Even if those torments lead to something good, they would be overwhelming to our human souls. We need to be overwhelmed so that we may be submerged in God’s presence fully. Better, St. Veronica said, to be overwhelmed now than later.

Like the Saints

So there’s that. I’ve wondered why Saints have asked for suffering, have wanted to have some disease or infirmity or illness of some kind. They have said that they want this so that they may enter into the salvific suffering of Christ, “offering up” their own sufferings to Him so that He may transform them into eternal blessing, freeing them and others from Purgatory. That transformation is what Jesus accomplished on the Cross: He changed pain into penance (doing penance for us), suffering into saving love, and death into eternal life. Christ alone is the Savior, but He did say, “Take up your cross and follow me.” With Him, through Him, and in Him, my cross joined with His purifies souls, leading us to Heaven.

So, I’m finally beginning to better understand Saints (I think), as well as the whole idea of penance. Since learning of St. Veronica Giuliani, I’ve been offering my own sufferings and little pains to Christ, in penance for my sins and for souls in Purgatory. I’m thinking that they are mostly going toward penance to purify me of my sins here and now. If there are any leftovers, and that’s a big if, then they will go with Christ for others.

I still want to know how this works. And why. But if I am truly willing to obey God, then I should be willing to obey even if I don’t know how my little acts fit into God’s ultimate plan. And if I truly love God, then I already know the reason why He asks me to do anything: because He loves me.

Lord, have mercy.

© 2023 Christina Chase

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Feature Photo by Yaopey Yong on Unsplash