In November our thoughts turn to who have died, especially as we commemorate All Saints, All Souls and Remembrance Sunday. Of course, we like to think that our loved ones are in heaven, but we might be anxious that they died without being fully prepared to meet God. In this season we can draw hope from the Church’s doctrine of purgatory.
From the earliest times Christians have believed that their prayers can help those who have died. The catacombs contain many inscriptions asking the reader to pray for the dead, just as in cemeteries today you might find old headstones with the words ‘Pray for the repose of the soul of …’. The Eucharist has always been offered for those who have died, as expressed in the prayers of the Mass. In his Confessions, St Augustine recalls how his dying mother St Monica asked him to remember her at the altar.
There is support for this belief in scripture. In the Old Testament, the book of Maccabees recounts how some Jewish soldiers who died in battle were found to be wearing pagan tokens. When Judas Maccabeus discovered this, he prayed to God and offered sacrifices on their behalf so that their sins might be forgiven (2Mac 12:39-45).
This story reflects early Jewish belief in an intermediate state between death and the final resurrection. Rabbinic Judaism spoke of the souls of the just dwelling in Paradise, waiting beneath the altar of God, or resting in Abraham’s bosom. We recognise this imagery in Jesus’ words to the Good Thief and the parable of ‘Dives and Lazarus’. The ancient funeral chant In Paradisum (still sung at Stanbrook) prays ‘may choirs of angels lead you into Paradise’ and ‘may you have eternal rest with Lazarus’.
In the New Testament, Jesus declared that those who blaspheme against the Holy Spirit would be forgiven neither in this age nor in the age to come (Mt 12:32) and St Paul spoke of a cleansing fire that tests the quality of our good works (1Cor 3:11-15). The Church Fathers, including St Gregory, interpreted this to mean that certain lesser faults can be forgiven in the next life through a process of cleansing and purification.
The Western understanding of purgatory was shaped by the early persecutions. While some Christians endured suffering or martyrdom, others publicly denied their faith. St Cyprian of Carthage declared that these ‘lapsed’ Christians could be readmitted to communion, but only after a lengthy period of public penance. If a person died before finishing their penance, they could complete it in the life to come. Unfortunately, in the Middle Ages there was a distorted exaggeration of this punitive aspect, sometimes depicted in graphic frescoes, as if purgatory were an actual place of punishment rather than a process of purification beyond the realms of earthly time.
The Eastern understanding was influenced by the beautiful concept of ‘divinisation’ where the Christian becomes ever more fully conformed to the image of God. St Clement of Alexandria saw the Christian life as a path of spiritual ascent. This process begins in this life and can continue in the next. However, Origen took the idea of the purifying fire to the extreme, as if even hell would be emptied eventually. As a result, purgatory was subsequently treated with caution in the East. Nevertheless, the Church, East and West, was united in its belief that the souls of the departed are helped by the prayers of the faithful and the sacrifice of the Mass (a point emphasised by the Councils of Lyons, Florence and Trent).
How is purgatory to be understood today? The canonisation of St Carlo Acutis reminds us that there are people who live lives of self-giving love, totally open to God and neighbour. Heaven is precisely this communion of life and love with the Trinity and the saints (CCC 1024). But there are others who reject truth and goodness and close their hearts to love. These people freely choose to separate themselves from God in the state called hell. However, perhaps most of us lie somewhere in the middle – retaining a genuine openness to God but compromising with venial sin in everyday life. For us imperfect Christians, a temporary state of purification is necessary to enlarge our hearts and prepare us to live fully in communion with God and the saints in heaven.
Dante imagined purgatory as a mountain where sins are purged, and the ascent becomes easier as one makes progress. St Catherine of Genoa envisaged the ‘fire’ of purgatory as the inflowing of God’s love which burns away the rust of sin. The soul’s ‘suffering’ arises from its displeasure at its imperfections which hinder its full union with God, but this is mitigated by happiness in knowing that it is saved. St John Henry Newman, in The Dream of Gerontius, writes, ‘O happy, suffering soul, for it is safe: consumed, yet quickened by the glance of God’.
Purgatory witnesses to God’s mercy, but this does not mean that sin is inconsequential. All sin damages our relationship with God, with other people, and causes disorders within ourselves. Even when we are repentant and forgiven, there is still need for reintegration through prayer and penance, moved by God’s grace. The Christian life is a continuous path of conversion, and purgatory can be thought of as a completion of this process. However, after death, individuals can no longer make active satisfaction, but they can receive Christ’s healing grace through the prayers of the Church.
The strongest scriptural support for purgatory comes from the teaching of St Paul on the Church as the Body of Christ: ‘We, though many are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another’ (Rom 12:5). As members of the Body of Christ, our lives are joined in communion. As Pope Benedict explains in Spe Salvi, these bonds of love can reach beyond death into the afterlife (SS 48). The Church comprises three states: the pilgrim Church on earth, the saints in heaven, and those undergoing purification after death. Just as the saints intercede for us, so we can intercede for those who have died, and they in turn can help us by their prayers.
It is a great consolation to know that the salvation of the souls in purgatory is assured. St Catherine of Genoa said, ‘No happiness can be found worthy to be compared with that of a soul in purgatory except that of the saints in paradise’. They are still united to us in the Body of Christ, and by our prayers and acts of charity we can help them in their final purification. Purgatory is an expression of our ultimate hope – eternal life – not only for ourselves but for those who have gone before us.
May the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace, Amen.
Sr Marian Sweeting-Hempsall OSB
Image of Christ the Good Shepherd from the catacombs