This might be perceived as a controversial post because some of us have been taught, rather without footnotes to Catechisms or scripture, what purgatory is and why most all have to pass through it, whatever it is---a place, a state of being, before entering heaven.
When I think back on what I was taught or heard, what stood out clearest prior to my current understanding was a teaching of Bishop Sheen's that is used to explain indulgences. He was saying that when we sin it is like hammering nails into a board and when we go to Confession, the absolution is like getting the nails pulled out, but then the holes are still there. Punishment is still necessary.
Of course this flies in the face of what the Protestant would tell you that Jesus once and for all paid the price of sin and no other price needs to be paid. That would take a post longer than any post ever written and there are books out there explaining the meaning of suffering, why suffering can be offered in reparation of sin, why some saints, particularly in the Latin rite, viewed suffering as means of resembling Christ. This post isn't about trying to suffer our way into heaven. We only get to heaven through belief and trust in our Savior, "washing our robes" in the Precious Blood of the Lamb of God (Revelation 7:14).
There is value in our suffering when united to the suffering of Christ and that is scriptural too (Colossians 1:24), and it has been enlighted by the teachings of Blessed Pope John Paul II in
Salvifici Doloris.
We have the wisdom that was given by God to the saints, and preserved for us through their writings to help us, that the Protestants have unfortunately been deprived of. I am speaking of the teachings of St. Catherine of Genoa, and St. Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face, and St. Faustina.
My understanding is not incompatible with the teaching of Bishop Sheen, but more along the lines that the holes left over indicate a tendency toward sin due to our not resembling the heart of Our Savior, the most tender, most merciful, most forgiving, most loving, most sensitive heart.
My belief/understanding is to the extent our heart resembles Christ's merciful heart of forgiveness and love, and the more perfect our trust in Jesus's Divine Mercy the higher the probability that we will bypass purgatory. When I hear people I love say something is unforgivable or say something disparaging, unloving, judgmental about someone or some group of people, this is when I worry for their spending time in purgatory. It shows their heart has not been formed into the mold of Jesus.
OK, yes, I am still very much one of those! I have hope though that I have found the way, of course his name is Jesus, but it isn't just his name, or who he is (our Savior), but also, what he taught or rather what he commanded us:
John 13:34: "I give you a new command: Love each other. You must love each other like I loved you."
1 John 4:16: And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him.
1 John 4:8: Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.
What these verses say to me (and this is illuminated by the writings of St. Catherine of Genoa, St. Therese) is that to the extent we do not love we are not following Jesus's command to love like he has loved us. We cannot love the way he loves us unless we know and rely on the love God has for us. Obviously, God is the judge and Jesus the gate, but my strong sense is we cannot know God in heaven unless we love as he has loved us, which is a symptom of being docile to the Holy Spirit's work of sanctifying grace. My belief is if we don't learn what seems to be a very obvious teaching of Jesus in the Gospels, and echoed in the First letter of John, further illuminated by the writings and example of Saints, but rather persist in non-forgiveness, acts of commission and omission that show lack of love and mercy, actual prejudice toward groups of people, etc. then we will not be able to go from death straight into heaven. We will instead learn what should have been the obvious and demanding, commanding lesson of love in Purgatory, whether that be a state or a place. Some mystics (personal revelations only, not teachings of the church, or scriptural) did write that there is a place and real suffering in purgatory.
We will need to have our heart fixed first through either a very soul-filled spiritual purgation as we realize the magnitude of Christ's love and sacrifice (will come rather quickly when we are face to face with our beautiful Savior without the veil of this life), or perhaps through experiencing some real suffering in a state or place of purgatory. It seems to me that the purity of heart and primary willingness to love and console our Precious Lord are brought about by following Christ's command, thus, "Whoever lives in love, lives in God, and God in him." Even if we have failings instead of the holes in the board remaining after the nails are removed, they are filled in by the perfect way of trust in God's love and the confidence that his love and mercy are greater than any failing we could commit.
In case it seems I have left the reservation on this one, I would implore you to take some time and ponder the teaching on purgatory from St. Therese. This
post by Patricia is concise, versus re-reading
Story of A Soul (which I just did), and then reading multiple commentaries on it, and due to including a commentary, thoroughly explains this teaching, and is well worth the time to read it.
I love the empty hands teaching of St. Therese also contained in her
Offering to Merciful Love. It is along the lines of Marian consecration . . . we give any merit for anything we do to her to use as she wills. The effect of this is empty hands and the trust that the Father will look at us through the precious face of his Son and that his precious blood alone will merit our entrance into heaven....why else would we be longing to be one of the white robbed masses in Revelation 7 that washed their robes in the blood of the lamb?
I do think the more suffering one has (sometimes it starts spiritually when we are humbled by the mercy and love God shows to us so directly) and the more one submits to the transforming love (is that not also part of the teaching from St. Therese's Offering to Merciful Love?) of the Holy Spirit, and the grace and mercy streaming from Jesus's Sacred Heart, the more compassionate and loving one will become. It isn't just the one that has been forgiven much that loves much, but also the one like our beloved St. Therese has the Holy Spirit granted insight that it is all-about being loved by God, and loving others that way we have been loved and making that the focus of our spiritual and active life pursuits (John 13:34).
Suddenly, as she was kneeling down at the confessional, "her heart was wounded by a dart of God's immense love, and she had a clear vision of her own wretchedness and faults and the most high goodness of God. She fell to the ground, all but swooning", and from her heart rose the unuttered cry, "No more of the world for me! No more sin!" The confessor was at this moment called away, and when he came back she could speak again, and asked and obtained his leave to postpone her confession.
Then she hurried home, to shut herself up in the most secluded room in the house, and for several days she stayed there absorbed by consciousness of her own wretchedness and of God's mercy in warning her. She had a vision of Our Lord, weighed down by His Cross and covered with blood, and she cried aloud, "O Lord, I will never sin again; if need be, I will make public confession of my sins." After a time, she was inspired with a desire for Holy Communion which she fulfilled on the feast of the Annunciation.
She now entered on a life of prayer and penance. She obtained from her husband a promise, which he kept, to live with her as a brother. She made strict rules for herself—to avert her eyes from sights of the world, to speak no useless words, to eat only what was necessary for life, to sleep as little as possible and on a bed in which she put briars and thistles, to wear a rough hair shirt. Every day she spent six hours in prayer. She rigorously mortified her affections and will.
The path of love bypassing purgatory does not help us to avoid taking up our cross and following Jesus (Matthew 16:24, Luke 9:23) as you see by how St. Catherine chose to live after her experience, or if your read and understand the magnitude of the sufferings St. Therese endured without pain relief. The other related insight from St. Therese, is that suffering for love of Jesus, knowing that the merits of her sacrifices did help further the Kingdom of God in other souls, became a great joy for her. My own belief, perhaps subject of another post, is that there is heavenly reward correlated to the way we pick up our cross and follow Jesus (Revelation 22:12), that there is reward commensurate with our ability and willingness to do so with the pure intention of loving and consoling Jesus. St. Therese and St. Faustina wrote on this, but again, too much for one post!
As far as St. Catherine's living like sibling with her husband, I wouldn't say that is the way for everyone that is married being transformed by the love of God either; it was her way, and there are other holy people who chose to live this way, in keeping with what St. Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 7:1-2.
And as for the bed of briars and thistles and the hair shirt, I still love Father Corapi's comment, "You are sitting next to your hair shirt," during one of his talks. Further, an eastern father, Abba Pimen, said that we lay down our lives for our friends when we leave our self-absorption, pride, and self-indulgence aside, and essentially love each other and forgive each other, and do not judge each other. Doesn't that sound very much like St. Therese's Little Way of Love?
John 15:13: "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends."
Please share your thoughts. I don't mean this as a controversy because that isn't the mission of this blog, but if this really is the core teaching of Christ that we should be striving to understand and live, relying on God's love, it is important to discuss and help each other, and all those in contact with us learn it too, so as to spare them learning the lesson on the other side, when the suffering, as St. John of the Cross (mentioned in Patricia's post) indicated, will be far greater than that which can be experienced in this life.
After dying, wouldn't you want to pass straight into the arms of your loving Savior and into the incomprehensible love of the Father if possible?
Wouldn't you want your loved ones especially, and if we really get the lesson, all souls that we could persuade to this necessity, to do the same?
