A VISIT TO PURGATORY	  	FOOD FOR THOUGHT
			Fr Francis Marsden
					6th Nov. 1988

A reader’s question: 
	Father, November is here and we start to remember our deceased brethren. Now, why do we never hear the words Purgatory or Holy Souls nowadays? At most of the Requiems I have attended, the priest speaks of the dead person being with God, implying that he or she is already in heaven. So why the Requiem? The emphasis seems to be on celebration of the person’s life, all fine and good, but they most likely are also in need of our prayers and sacrifices.

Answer:	I take your point. We do not seem to hear so much about purgatory these days. This may be a reaction against too much concentration on it in years gone by. Alternatively, it may be a reaction against the over-arithmetic approach to indulgences which gave purgatory a bad name.

Nevertheless, the existence of purgatory is de fide, a certain part of revealed truth. The bishops at the Ecumenical Councils of Lyons (1271) and Florence (1439) solemnly declared: “The souls of those who depart this life with true repentance and in the love of God, before they have rendered satisfaction for their trespasses and negligence by the worthy fruits of penance, are purified after death with the punishments of purification.”

Vatican II explicitly accepts this doctrine and that of Trent concerning purgatory and the value of Masses, prayers and sacrifices for the Holy Souls, in Lumen Gentium 51.

Is the Requiem homily the best place for an instruction on purgatory? The principal theme is the sharing in Christ’s resurrection. In the Mass Christ pleads for this man’s soul before the Father. He offers Himself, His wounds upon the Cross, in atonement for sin, that the dead person may be released from the bonds of his sins. We pray and plead with Christ, as members of His body.

Purgatory involves a coming to terms with the Divine Justice and the Divine Mercy. God forgives the guilt of sin, but its effects and impurity must be purged or burnt out of our characters. Nothing unholy can stand in the presence of the All-Holy One. Hence the purifying and healing process of purgatory is most necessary.

The most acute pain in purgatory is that of longing for God, but knowing one is not yet ready to be united with Him. Some of the punishment must also be that of seeing our sins in their full malice, understanding the horrible effects they have had upon our own growth, and the damage and sorrow they have caused to others. In purgatory we realize these painful truths, but in the embrace of Divine Mercy.

May I recommend to you St Catherine of Genoa’s “Treatise on Purgatory,” a revealing little book which did much to inspire Newman‘s poem “The Dream of Gerontius.”

If you set any store by the messages of Medugorje, one of the visionaries is supposed to have spoken to Our Lady about life after death. Our Lady explained to her that the largest number of souls go to purgatory, the next largest number to hell, and a small number directly to heaven. The majority of us are neither great saints nor great sinners. We have not made of our lives what we could have made. Purgatory is fitting for us.

One can compare purgatory to a visit to the dentist, to get tooth decay drilled out. It may be unpleasant and painful, but it is necessary and for our benefit. The decay in our souls that sin has caused needs to be drilled out and filled.

How blunt or distressingly honest should a priest be at a funeral? Could you imagine the consequences if an exasperated priest were one day to say: “Your dearly departed and much loved relative X never darkened the door of the Church, slandered the local clergy in the club, beat his wife, defrauded his customers, neglected his children, visited various mistresses at different times, and drank the local pub dry on occasions too numerous to mention.
“He showed no sign of repentance and died unshriven because his family couldn’t be bothered to think of sending for the priest. We had to cajole you into remembering properly and praying for his soul, when all you wanted was a ten-minute quickie at the crematorium to get rid of him.
“If he’s scraped even into purgatory he’ll be lucky. Moreover, I can assure you, he will be there for a very long time. And if you lot don’t amend your ways, you’ve a very nasty surprise coming to you in the next world as well, five minutes after you’re dead.”

No doubt, there would be screams, floods of tears, people walking out and letters to the bishop. Judgment belongs to God, not to the priest. However, by the same token, just as it would be wrong to damn, or nearly damn, anyone in a homily, so too is it not wrong to canonize them, by the pretence that they had no faults and are already dancing with the angels? Ordinary human goodness falls far short of the Infinite Holiness and Majesty of God. We dare not trivialize the awesomeness of the eternal One.

When someone has just died, we are inclined to say: “Now his suffering is over. Now he is at peace.” However, neither of those statements is necessarily true. If the person in question did not die in unrepented mortal sin, he or she may still be undergoing the quickening and purification. True, the Holy Souls have great joy and peace in the fact that eternal blessedness will be theirs, but they have not yet reached it. They suffer, wait, and are cleansed until perfect peace will be theirs forever.

St Bede in his History of the English Church gives us an account of the vision of a man named Drycthelm (V.12) who nearly died and came back to life. He was led by an angel. He reported, “We came to a very broad and deep valley of infinite length. The side to our left was dreadful with burning flames, while tbe opposite side was equally horrible with raging hai1 and bitter snow blowing and driving in all directions. Both sides were filled with men’s souls, which seemed to be hurled from one side to the other by the fury of the tempest.
“For when the wretches could no longer endure the blast of the terrible heat, they leapt into the heart of the terrible cold; and finding no refuge there, they leaped back again to be burned in the middle of the unquenchable flames. “ His guide tells him “This is not Hell as you imagine.” 
Later he does glimpse the jaws of Hell, and afterwards he is shown “a very broad and pleasant meadow, so filled with the scent of spring flowers that its wonderful fragrance quickly dispelled all the stench of the gloomy furnace that had overcome me. Such was the light flooding this entire place that it seemed greater than the brightness of daylight or of the sun’s rays at noon. In the meadows were innumerable companies of men in white robes, and many parties of happy people were sitting together. In response to my thought my guide said, “No, this is not the Kingdom of Heaven as you imagine.”

He then explains: “The valley that you saw, with its horrible burning flames and icy cold, is the place where souls are tried and punished who have delayed to confess and amend their wicked ways, and who at last had recourse to penitence at the hour of death, and so depart this life. They will all be admitted to the Kingdom of Heaven only on the Day of Judgment. However, many are helped by the prayers, alms, and fasting of the living, and especially by the offering of Masses, and are therefore set free before the Day of Judgment.

The fiery noisome pit that you saw is the mouth of Hell, and whosoever falls into it will never be delivered throughout eternity.

“This flowery place, where you see these fair young people so happy and resplendent, is where Souls are received who die having done good, but are not so perfect as to merit immediate entry into the Kingdom of Heaven. But at the Day of Judgement they shall all see Christ and enter upon the joys of His Heavenly Kingdom.”

So, is there really a “nice” purgatory and a “nasty” purgatory? We always have to be slightly cautions with such revelations. Nevertheless, St Bede is a Doctor of the Church. We shall find out for ourselves all in due time.