Bob's Purgers

To recap so far:

1) The souls in Purgatory are “the elect” and are assured Heaven.
2) Purgatory is a place of final purification to cleanse us of any unholy attachments or penance we still owed at our death.

So doesn’t that mean people just have to wait their time out in Purgatory until they are finished?

Yes and no.

Yes, if no one is praying for them or offering up penance for them the souls will remain in Purgatory until their “time” is up. It’s important to remember time is a relative concept since it’s been implied that (like Heaven) time is different in Purgatory than it is on earth.

However, we, the Church Militant, can do something for those in Purgatory to help them reach Heaven sooner. We can offer up something called Indulgences for the souls in Purgatory.

Whoa, wait a minute, the Church doesn’t believe in that anymore, right?!? That was why the Protestant Reformation happened!

Yes, some clergy back in the day misused the doctrine of Indulgences to raise money for the Church. They were wrong. But that doesn’t make Indulgences wrong, just how they were handled in the past. The Council of Trent addressed this in 1563. It called to amend and correct the abuses that crept into this practice by having all bishops report abuses of the practice as they saw them. The Council also stated “that this gift of holy Indulgences may be dispensed to all the faithful, piously, holily, and incorruptly.”

To sum up, the Council did not deny the existence of Indulgences, nor did it eliminate the practice of Indulgences; it only corrected the misuse and abuse of the practice.

If you look in some older Catholic books you may see a time attached to an Indulgence, e.g. 100 years “off of Purgatory” for performing a certain penance. That system was really to rank order various pious acts, rather than to guarantee something would knock, say, 100 years off of someone’s time in Purgatory. Partly because of the confusion it caused, that system no longer exists today.  The two types of Indulgences are Plenary (meaning full or complete) and Partial (meaning, well, partial or not complete).

Only God will know if the Indulgence we offer meets all the requirements of a Plenary Indulgence. Even if we can’t perform the act of a Plenary Indulgence on a regular basis, there are plenty of Partial Indulgences we can offer up every day.

One way to gain a Partial Indulgence is to pray Psalm 130 (in some Bibles it’s Psalm 129):

Out of the depths I cry to You,
O Lord: Lord, hear my voice.
Let Your ears be attentive, to the voice of my supplication.
If You, O Lord, should mark iniquities, Lord, who could stand?
But with You there is forgiveness, that you may be revered.
My soul is waiting for the Lord; my soul has relied on His word.
My soul is longing for the Lord, more than sentinels wait for the dawn.
More than sentinels wait for the dawn, let Israel wait for the Lord.
For with the Lord there is mercy, and with Him is plentiful redemption.
And He shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities.

Today the soul I am praying for is Brian Bower.

“Lord have mercy on all who appear before You today.”

You may be asking yourself, why do we need purgatory? Fair question, after all if we believe that Jesus paid the ultimate sacrifice for our sins, what else is there for us to do?

Yes, while it’s true that God forgives us for our sins, we still have to deal with the damage our sins caused. Sometimes we forget the ultimate reason sin is bad; sin is bad because it separates us from God.

When we sin it’s like when we break a window. Yes we can admit to breaking the window and God forgives us (like a parent would forgive a child) but the window is still broken and needs to be repaired or replaced. When we offer up penance we are essentially paying to fix the broken window.

Penance traditionally comes in the form or prayer, fasting, or almsgiving. We do these things because they are spiritual practices that draw us back to God. Sin separates us from God and penance brings us back into a closer relationship with God.

Personally the idea of Purgatory gives me comfort. I know I am not perfect. I know there’s a good chance I still will not be perfect when my time on earth is done. I am comforted by the fact that after my death I can still go through a purification to make me truly ready for Heaven and to be in the presence of God.

Today is Friday so it’s a day we traditionally offer up some penance or sacrifice. Today is also the solemnity of St Peter and St Paul, so while I suggest not fasting today, I do suggest doing something extra to offer up for the souls in purgatory. Maybe go to a daily Mass, pray a Divine Mercy chaplet, or read scripture for 30 minutes. All of these can help the souls in Purgatory if we offer those up for them.

Today the soul I am praying for is Lillian Martha Koenig.

“Lord have mercy on all who appear before You today.”

There are a lot of misconceptions about the doctrine of Purgatory.

Some people think Purgatory is a permanent eternal place for people who aren’t good enough to go to Heaven but not bad enough to go to hell. To put it bluntly, that is not what Purgatory is. To quote the Catechism of the Catholic Church 1031: “The Church gives the name Purgatory to this final purification of the elect, which is entirely different from the punishment of the damned.”

Here are three things we can take from that single statement:

1) Purgatory is completely different from hell. In hell the soul is eternally separated from God. In Purgatory the soul knows for a fact that it will eventually be with God for all eternity.

2) Purgatory is a place of final purification. Once the soul reaches that point of purification it will leave Purgatory and be reunited with God in Heaven forever.

3) Purgatory is not for eternity. The people there are “the elect”; at some point in time all of them will complete purification and be in Heaven.

The souls in Purgatory are guaranteed they’re going to Heaven, so they got that going for them, which is nice, but they cannot do anything to lessen their time in Purgatory. We can help them though. One thing we can do is pray for them. Here is one prayer we can say for them:

Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord; And let perpetual light shine upon them. May they rest in peace. Amen

I suggest start adding this to your daily prayer routine if you can. You can do it first thing in the morning, before you go to bed, and one friend of mine told me they say it at mealtime. The when isn’t as important as making it a regular habit.

“Lord have mercy on all who appear before You today.”