Purgatory

November 06, 2005

St Bridget of Sweden (14th century) was favoured by many revelations. One of these was a vision of purgatory, which she beheld as a place of fiery torment and unendurable anguish inseparable from the everlasting torture of hell. To the agony of the suffering souls (among whom our own loved ones) is added the ultimate refinement: the Almighty permits them to believe that they are in hell and thus they cannot even hope for release from their unimaginable pain. It comes as welcome news that the Church obliges no Catholic to believe in any private revelation whatsoever. Nevertheless, modern pamphlets and devotional tracts on the subject of purgatory make it clear that Divine Sadism is still what many Catholics expect (even if it is called “Divine Justice”.)

We cannot say much about “the last things” without using very limited language and very imperfect images. What lies beyond the known world of our earthly experience is a profound mystery and we profane it with our ignorant, if well-intentioned, speculations. God discloses himself to us in his Word, so that we do not lose our way utterly when thinking about life and our final destiny. The Gospel reveals to us a God of such infinite love and mercy that the very concept of fiery torment has no place except as an image of the hell that we create for ourselves and for our victims. We cannot rid ourselves of the human

concept of “just punishment”. We find this concept in Scripture and in Tradition, to be sure, but the final word on the subject is the Final Word, and that is Christ: “All judgment has been given to the Son”. What hell beyond death might be, we have no real idea since the apocalyptic language of Jesus is a conventional idiom of late Judaism and not considered by scripture scholars to be descriptive of literal reality. Theologians allow that hell might mean the definitive voluntary exclusion of a person from God’s presence, but it is very difficult to apply such a concept to an actual person and to the God of love and mercy we believe in. Perhaps the end of a thoroughly bad person is extinction. Is a thoroughly bad person possible?

Purgatory as a doctrine allows us the possibility of further growth as we leave this world – and our own “flesh” – and enter into the presence of God. It is about purification, not punishment. In this progress towards God perhaps we have a voluntary part to play in that purification for we shall find ourselves before the loving gaze of Christ, our only judge, and we shall know our true condition; we shall desire to be made ready. We would welcome even the pain of this moment and in that pain is our purgatory. What occurs outside of time has no measurable duration. All is “at once”. The Catholic view allows for the prayers of the living to be a comfort to the dead and for their prayers to be intercessory on our behalf, but it would be crude to speak of a soul being “released” from purgatory by any earthly act. The communion of Saints surely includes “saints in the making”.  We are one in the love which God has for us and in the mercy offered to all –
even the worst of us. It is never too late.

Farm Street SVP