Purgatory is real and it matters not just because we need to pray for the souls of the dead but because it is a dogma of the faith that has real world consequences for those still living.
Purgatory and Praying for the Dead—A Forgotten Doctrine
Where I live, it was a perfect 75-degree clear weather day, the Saturday after All Soul’s Day. I went to the cemetery to pray for the dead. Considering this is All Soul’s week and we are still within the traditional 8-day window to obtain a plenary indulgence by praying for the dead at a cemetery, I expected it to be busier than it was. Sadly, it was practically empty. I did not notice any more visitors than on a regular day—in other words, it was pretty much empty with a few stragglers.
This got me thinking, once again (sigh!), about all the damage and bad fruit that resulted from the Second Vatican Council (Vatican II). I know we can argue over whether lack of knowledge and faith following the Council was due to the Council itself or just the “spirit” of Vatican II, but at the end of the day it doesn’t really matter. Think of all those souls with bodies buried in that cemetery that did not have anyone to pray for them because most Catholics today lack a traditional understanding of the Four Last Things and share the same beliefs as protestants or pagans about eternal life.
Out of all the Christian concepts people in this world don’t know about, yet desperately need to know about, it is Purgatory. It’s strange that this doctrine, which is so profoundly sensible, just, and merciful is almost completely ignored following the protestant revolt—certainly in protestant communities but also in the post-Vatican II novus ordo Catholic world.
And before we go one step further on that, if you don’t believe me, how many times have you been to a novus ordo funeral Mass where the celebrant is wearing a vestment other than black? Where a family member who gives the eulogy says the deceased is in Heaven with the angels or “is now with mom and dad”? How many don’t even call it a funeral or requiem Mass but refer to it as a “celebration of life?”
If you are one of those who denies the existence of Purgatory or believes it is a blasphemous insult to what Christ did for us on the Cross, hang tight because in PART 2, I am going to prove in more detail why Purgatory is not only very real but extremely reasonable and absolutely necessary to make sense of Christ’s work on the Cross.
For now, let’s focus on how this rejection of Purgatory hurts not only the poor souls that need our prayers but damages those still living.
Denial of Purgatory Only Helps the Atheists
Back about 20 years ago when I considered myself an atheist. or at best agnostic, one of my main arguments against Christianity was that Christians used religion as a crutch to make themselves feel better about death. “The Christian can’t get over the idea they will be dropped in a dirt hole and forgotten about after they die,” I would argue, “so they make up this fantasy world of the afterlife to appease their troubled psyche.”
When we avoid praying for the dead and pretend that Purgatory doesn’t exist, all we do is play right into that atheist argument. Why? Because it betrays our faith and exposes a weakness in that faith, which we should not actually have if we understand Holy Scripture and Tradition. We sell ourselves short, rather than proclaiming the Truth of God’s justice and mercy embedded in the doctrine of Purgatory. We refuse to accept the difficult reality of death in exchange for a rose-colored view of what happens when anyone dies, regardless of what they did in this life. That’s not Christian.
Problems with Canonizing our Friends and Family
But our failure to acknowledge this reality of the faith results in other problems as well. When we put on a celebration of life show after a loved one dies, we are really doing that for ourselves and not to benefit the deceased. Celebrating the life of the deceased is fine in itself but modern culture uses the celebration of life to replace a proper requiem (or funeral) Mass. That means our loved ones are not benefiting from very powerful prayers that may relieve them from the pains and suffering in Purgatory. We are letting our loved ones wallow in purgatorial fires while we sip champagne and look at pictures on a projector.
The second problem with canonizing our friends and relatives at their death is that it teaches heresy and error to those still living, whether non-believers or children or whoever doesn’t understand the reality of death, judgment, Heaven and Hell.
Ignoring the reality of Purgatory and praying for the dead contributes to the secular idea saturating modern society that either everyone ends up in Heaven or souls are simply extinguished at death along with the body.
Go ahead, ask some of your non-traditional Catholic friends and family what happens when someone dies. You will get answers such as “I think I will go to Heaven because I am a good person” or “God would never send people to Hell because that’s cruel,” or “I will go to Heaven because God forgave us all our sins on the Cross and I am a faithful person.” These are all very erroneous ideas, completely unchristian and very dangerous to souls.
Those ideas affect how we live in this earthly life because it downplays the reality and impact of sin. This ultimately leads to more people losing their souls entirely as they ignore the sacraments and die in a state of mortal sin—separated from God. This is a vicious cycle, straight from Satan—fueled in large part by ignoring Purgatory and avoiding praying for the dead.
Purgatory Teaches the World About the Effects of Sin
Avoiding the reality of sin is exactly the opposite of what the doctrine of Purgatory teaches us. Faithful Catholics know that even if we die in friendship with God and He eternally forgives us for our sins, the impact—or the effect—of that sin in this world and on others must still be accounted for. For those who may not see the difference, I will explain that distinction in more detail in a Part 2 of this post on Purgatory.
While there is a sense of joy that the poor souls in Purgatory experience because they know they will eventually achieve the beatific vision, we also know from Holy Scripture, private revelation and the few stories of those who God allowed to return to this world after having died, all testify to the suffering that goes on in Purgatory. Get and read this book on Purgatory to get a full understanding of the pains of Purgatory and how to avoid them. You won’t be the same after reading that book.
This suffering in Purgatory occurs as a consequence of God’s love, mercy and justice because of the effects of our sin. Once we get a better view and understanding of how much our sins, even our trifling ones, offend God and damage others, Purgatory makes so much more sense and seems extremely reasonable.
Comprehending the Infinite Effects of Our Sin
I am going to use one example of how a grave sin that most people do not even think is a sin can not only damage your relationship with God but result in effects that ripple through time for years or millennia, perhaps until the end of time.
Take the example of a couple that uses contraception who would have conceived a child but for the use of contraception. Today, most protestants see nothing wrong with contraception and most Catholics, even though they have been taught it is wrong, still ignore the Church’s teaching and use it anyway. Why? In part, because they don’t understand the effects of sin.
Let’s extrapolate out what happens when contraception prevents the conception of a child. Think of the infinite number of consequences with an infinite number of permutations that could result from such a sin. If the life that never came into existence was to grow up, have three children of his own, and then each of those children had three children of their own, now there are 13 lives that never came into existence because of one choice, one couple made, on one single occasion to block conception.
The next generation, assuming they each had three children, would result in an additional 27 lives added to the 13 that never came into existence. So, in just 3 generations, 40 individual souls that could have come into existence did not because of one decision to contracept on one occasion. Continue to multiply out that progression over thousands of generations and the devastating impact of that sin is incomprehensible. And those are just lives that did not come into existence. What good may have been accomplished for the world or the Kingdom by just one of those lives who never came into existence because of the choice that one couple made?
Anyone, including myself, who has had to face down the reality of the effect of this particular sin and many others like it would reasonably fall into a pit of despair and depression over the thought. While God can certainly forgive offenses against Himself and satisfy the dictates of justice, thanks to Christ’s work on the Cross who redeemed us, there seems to be something unsatisfactory if God just ignored the impact of our sins on others and the world. But how could we possibly make up for that sin, or give restitution for it? It seems impossible. That’s where Purgatory comes in.
Purgatory is Necessary to Account for the Effects of Our Sin
Having gone through that exercise, does the damage that couple caused the world and God’s Kingdom through their sin simply go away if the couple asks for forgiveness and Christ grants it in confession? No, it doesn’t because confession reconciles our relationship with God but does not account for the harm and damage caused in this world due to our sin. They are two different consequences of sin that need to be accounted for: the rupture of our relationship with God Himself and the effects of that sin.
God is infinitely merciful and infinitely just. At the same time, our sins affect other people and society. To pretend like what we do in the “here and now” does not ultimately matter is a key error of the atheists, agnostics and even most protestants. What we do in this life matters. It matters to God, it matters to others and matters to society. We are not robots without free will to make choices before we die. Each of us matters as a human being, which is why we are endowed with a certain dignity, in the image of God, that lesser animals and life forms were not given.
Purgatory exists because God recognizes our dignity and loves us. It gives us the chance to account for and pay just restitution for the effects of our sins. It’s an opportunity that without it would prevent us from entering Heaven. To deny Purgatory is to deny God’s love, his mercy and true justice. Yes, Purgatory is real, and it matters. Stay tuned for Part 2 where the reasonableness and necessity of Purgatory is explained and how this can be squared with Christ’s work on the Cross.