"No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true." (Steve Jobs)
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| AfroBoer Coffee Shop, 16 November 2023 |
Death is a part of life. We are created in God's image and likeness, and so a spark of God exists in all of us, meaning our death is not the end of the road as it would be for a mosquito between the palms of our hands. We were created with a body and a soul. God is eternal, and so He has created us for eternity, giving us a soul. Death is the bridge between our life on earth and our eternal life. However, it is scary and daunting to face, even for Our Lord, despite knowing He would go on to conquer death by rising from the dead. However, we know that he was afraid and wept in the Garden of Gethsemane as his trial drew near.
When we die, our choice is one of two states: the eternal glory of heaven or the endless suffering of hell. I say choice because God loves us and would never voluntarily punish us without giving us an option. For those who choose hell, they choose the pain of separation from their Creator, while for those who choose Heaven, they choose the bliss of Communion with Love; that is God!
In choosing heaven, we must pass through the state of purgatory. So, what exactly do we know about purgatory? Here are three core things:
1. There exists some final place of purification
"On the other hand every sin, even venial, entails an unhealthy attachment to creatures, which must be purified either here on earth, or after death in the state called Purgatory. This purification frees one from what is called the "temporal punishment" of sin." (CCC, 1472)
Our Lord's life on earth, His actions and words always leave us with some purpose and direction for our faith. On the night of the last supper, before the breaking of the bread and the start of his trial, Our Lord washed his disciple's feet. In objection, we know: 'Peter said to him, "You shall never wash my feet." Jesus answered, "If I do not wash you, you have no part in me." ' (John 13:8)
It is a pride to believe we can participate in eternal salvation by skipping the purification and cleansing to get to heaven. Heaven allows us to encounter the meeting with God, and we need to be prepared and ready for that encounter. Toddler boys don't like anything that has to do with cleaning up, bath time, or brushing their teeth, and they resist with a great fight. However, as a parent, you ensure they are cleaned and groomed out of love and for their health benefit. Catholics believe there is a state before Heaven called purgatory. A place where we are cleansed and our garments are purified and made beautiful, like a bride's dress is immaculate and pure before her bridegroom. Just as parents wash up their children for their own good, even if they may protest, purgatory is a state of preparation and cleansing for our own good to make us ready to meet our Father in heaven.
2. We believe that purification is painful or involves some discomfort
Anything of great importance in life requires a good deal of preparation to be made ready. The most essential purpose of every human being who has and will walk the face of the earth is to return to God. However, we want to be our best before Him, and purgatory allows us time to make things right if we cannot do so on earth.
Our Lord told his disciples a story of a rich man dressed in fine clothes who ate lavishly in his home. Outside his home was a poor man, full of sores, who wished only to eat the scraps off the rich man's table. When the poor man died, he went to Abraham's bosom, but when the rich man died, he went to Hades. He looked up to the poor man and implored Abraham to send Lazarus down to give him a drink of water to cool his tongue as he was in anguish in the fire. Abraham explained it was impossible for the poor man to go down to Hades and then begged the poor man be sent to his father's house and his five brothers to warn them of Hades. Abraham said they had Moses and the prophets, but the rich man wished for someone raised from the dead to warn them (Luke 16:19-31).
Jesus told this story before his crucifixion and death, which later would lead to humanity's redemption, opening the gates to heaven. However, it tells us that enduring suffering on earth, big or small, can lessen the suffering after death. It is like a bank account. We can save all our sufferings, offerings, small denials, and acceptances of things that don't always go well. Regular confession of sins also helps cleanse our soul of things we may hold onto for years, and if we die holding onto some grudge, then purgatory will be where we learn to undo that grudge and let go of it to ready our soul to see the world as God does.
The idea is, why wait for purgatory? It would be far more painful than suffering on Earth. I think this is because in purgatory, we will be so close to seeing God yet feel so far away. On earth, we are confined to life and divided into 24 hours a day. However, after death, that all changes, we enter the eternal realm, so to speak, where we live without time, and so a lifetime on earth could be a mere second in eternity. Imagine that pain of being separated from God for a year of eternity?!
3. We believe the prayers of those on earth can assist those going through this final purification
"In the Communion of saints, "a perennial link of charity exists between the faithful who have already reached their heavenly home, those who are expiating their sins in purgatory and those who are still pilgrims on earth. Between them there is, too, an abundant exchange of all good things." In this wonderful exchange, the holiness of one profits others, well beyond the harm that the sin of one could cause others. Thus recourse to the Communion of saints lets the contrite sinner be more promptly and efficaciously purified of the punishments for sin." (CCC, 1475)
The souls in purgatory need our prayers daily as the state they are in keeps the door to heaven closed, and the door to earth is also shut, making it unlikely for souls in purgatory to ask people on earth to pray for them. We pray for the souls in purgatory from earth to help free their souls from purgatory to heaven. Perhaps by offering up a decade of the rosary or suffering through some illness or pain, we can unite that prayer for family members who have passed on. What's more, praying for the soul in purgatory who needs it most can be amazing. Imagine there is a soul who only needs your one prayer to be freed of purgatory and enter into heaven. Let's say you pray for them and release them to heaven. Surely, when you die one day and enter purgatory, that soul who would be in heaven and no longer constrained will come to your aid as an advocate and defend you before God, saying this child of yours, prayer freed me of purgatory, look favourably on this child and cleanse them of their sin.
"Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life." (John 12:24-25)
Death is probably the hardest thing to accept in life. Still, our hope as Christians is that like a seed that dies to be planted and grow and generate the life of a new tree, our death will bring far greater things than we could imagine, giving us eternal life.
— Prayer traditionally attributed to St. Gertrude
Eternal Father, I offer You the most Precious Blood of Your 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.
(When St. Gertrude made a prayerful offering of her Communion, she was amazed at the great number of souls in purgatory helped as a result.)
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