November 1981 Print

IN PURGATORY, souls suffer for a time after death on account of their sins: either for venial sins that are not repented nor forgiven before death; or for sins whose guilt was forgiven in this life, but whose due of punishment is to be completed after death.

Healthy-minded children feel it quite natural that after forgiveness of a fault they have still penance to do for it. The child is forgiven as soon as he is brought to see that he has done wrong and to be sorry. He is forgiven in a moment; the father takes him back into friendship again. But it is a serious, chastened friendship. He sees his father's love shown now in trying to make him a better boy, teaching him to realize the wrongness of what he has done, and the seriousness of willfully choosing such wrong-doing. He feels that his fault calls for punishment; he accepts the punishment and takes it understandingly, not welcoming it, but seeing that, just because he does not like it, it is what he needs to set right his sin. In such a child, the actual bearing of the punishment when it comes does not lead to any rebellion or sulkiness. It may be that for a week, night after night, he has to be sent to bed early, while the other children are not. Each time it is a hard and bitter reminder of his fault and repentance; but he knows it is the thing that ought to be, and he feels no soreness about it. In the daily life of a Catholic school, one of the most beautiful things is to see this acceptance of punishment going on constantly: the boy doing his penance at the appointed times, and in the intervals exchanging thoughts with the teacher in the most frank and friendly way. On the other hand, a child who knows he ought to be punished and is not, feels at first that in some way right is not being done and wrong is to be let go free. Soon, no doubt, he loses his sense of right and wrong about his own doings. But, as manhood approaches, often he blames his parents that they did not correct him when he had no sense to correct himself.

A healthy-minded child sees this truth, that after repenting and obtaining forgiveness, we should then take our punishment. But many parents do not see it. If their temper is roused, they punish the child; if not, they do nothing to check his fault; and so the child is spoiled. Their only notion of forgiveness is forgiving punishment. Yet even they in many cases feel the need of making atonement when they have offended a neighbor and been forgiven. Anyone who wants to understand the existence of Purgatory must ponder this point till he feels the need for punishment as well as forgiveness.

The Catechism speaks often of bearing punishment for our sins after God has forgiven our guilt. The guilt is the badness in the will, the badness which consented to do this wrong. Repentance is changing our mind, judging sin as God judges it. Not merely, "I know it was wrong and ought never to have been done," but "I wish, as God wishes, that I had never done it." That change of mind God Himself enables us to make, in contrition and in confession; and thereby He forgives us and makes friends with us. What punishment shall we now suffer, to atone to Him? The priest appoints us penance, by God's authority. Not always is this enough; perhaps not often. There will be other penances appointed by the Church, fasting and abstaining, to satisfy for our sins. And yet others, the best penances of all, sent by God Himself—crosses, sicknesses, pains; and we should say, "Lord, I take these for my sins." Again, we ourselves should devise further atonements; either by doing good works to satisfy for our bad works, or by punishments self-inflicted. Here the Church helps us. She suggests good works and penances for us to choose from, when we seek something to offer to God in atonement. By her power of loosing on earth what shall be loosed also in heaven, she makes these good works and penances take the place of much longer and greater punishment, if our sorrow and desire to atone be such as to fit us in God's sight to receive this indulgence. And after all of this, when we depart this life, we expect to find that we have not fully paid our due punishment for our sins. We set the littleness of our penances and good works beside the majesty of God and His outraged love; we see how unsteady and incomplete are our highest efforts, and how our daily weaknesses and unmastered habits stain us anew after all our repentings and atonings; and we look for the days of purgation, when there shall be no distraction nor weakness nor power to sin, and the soul can give its whole being to suffer in an agony of longing to be clean.

Why is suffering needed to cleanse us? Some have thought of God as a hard creditor, fixing the tax of pain for every sin or every sinner. But we must not think that right and wrong are fixed arbitrarily by God; for they rest on His very nature. Not, It is right that we should suffer for sin, since God so commands; rather, He commands it because it is right. And in His goodness He has made us like Himself; giving us light not only to see what is His will, but also to see to some extent what He sees. Therefore let us try to see why it is right that after repenting our sins we must suffer for them.

Consider a spirit, angel or man, that defies God and disobeys His will. Imagine that God consents to this; treats the rebellious spirit as a welcome friend, as a fitting companion for the sinless angels and for God Himself. Imagine that God creates spirits such that they can find eternal and untroubled happiness in defying their Maker, and can bask unrebuked in His love. Do we not feel at once that this is not God that we are picturing? that in some way eternal justice would be violated if these things were possible, and the holiness of God would be profaned? If God be God, such defying and rebellion and all unholiness must be hateful to Him. His very nature requires that all sin shall bring its own punishment on the sinner.

Again, consider the sinner who discovers and realizes what he has done in defying his Maker. He sees at once that punishment unthinkable is his due. Only two alternatives seem possible to him: the despair of devils and of Judas, if he has lost all love of God; or, if he keeps any root of love, then the wish to suffer to the limits of his nature, that in some way he may acknowledge the majesty and the holiness that he has outraged. To him comes the gift of hope; the seemingly unbelievable yet certain knowledge that God's all-mastering power can so change him from his sin that he shall be as if he had never sinned. The Magdalen shall dwell unabashed with the spotless Mother of God; yea, and with God Himself. With this hope to enlighten him, the sinner sees he is to make an atonement far ampler than he had thought. He will suffer now, and by his suffering not only atone to the Majesty he had insulted, but also restore to God the servant and friend who seemed lost, rendering up his own soul new-made in the fires of God's love.

BETWEEN GOD AND MAN, love is the only standard to judge by. There can be no asking what are the limits of our strict duty to God, nor any claiming from God of our just rights. For He owes us nothing and we owe Him all, even our very being. And the only weighing and measuring between us, do we give Him love in our measure, as He gives us love in His measure? Now, love calls in its own way for justice. Love will give to the beloved all that is his due, and think it but a small beginning of love's gifts. God's love for us can content itself in nothing less than making us as perfect as our nature allows—perfect in holiness, perfect in love. And our love for God requires that we pay to Him every smallest and every greatest duty that a creature can render to his Maker. In setting right our sins, therefore, God's method is to bring us to act, as He acts, for love. In this love we intercede for the suffering souls. He has taught us to forgive our enemies, to pray for them, to try to win them to God when they sin. That is, we must learn to look with God's eyes of love on all who, through sin or through sorrow, need His help. We must wish as He wishes that they be delivered from the bonds of their sin and brought home to His love. In this way it is a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead that they may be loosed from their sins.

For the other side, the wish to be prayed for in this way is also part of the spreading of God's love in souls. When we look at our own nothingness and our sins, we see that neither we nor all mankind can do anything to atone, and that there is no hope for us but in that love which God is spreading among men. "If thou, O Lord, shalt mark iniquities, Lord, who shall abide it?" And just as, when He has forgiven us, the Scripture says, "All ye that fear God, come and hear, and I will tell you what great things He hath done for my soul," so that when we want forgiveness, it is natural to call on all those who love God to pray Him to have mercy on us: "I beseech all the saints, and you, brethren, to pray to the Lord our God for me." Thus we are forced into truth and humility by our knowledge of God's ways; we must flee from all thoughts of justifying or excusing ourselves or setting ourselves right, and take refuge in the world of love that God has made, to redeem the world of sin. The suffering souls in purgatory too will call in the same way for prayers from their brothers on earth, if it be God's will that this particular soul shall be aided by those prayers. For these souls are more helpless than we; they can do nothing whatever for their sins but suffer; and their whole activity is concerned with God's love.

Many Catholics ask the prayers of the suffering souls in purgatory, and believe that often they obtain favors from God through these prayers. But sometimes a doubt is raised whether this can be; and this for two reasons. One, do these souls know anything that passes on earth? For if not, then they do not even know that we are wanting them to pray for us. And secondly, since they cannot pray for themselves nor do anything to purify themselves but suffer, is it likely that they can pray for us?

As to their knowledge. In this world the soul does not learn what is happening except by hearing, seeing, and the other bodily senses. Consequently, when the soul leaves the body it has no natural means of learning anything that happens on earth. This is true alike of the souls in hell, in purgatory, in heaven. It is not difficult to believe that the saints in heaven, who like the angels "always see the face of My Father Who is in heaven," in seeing God see all the happenings on earth that He wishes them to see; which is also all that they wish to see, since they now wish only what God wishes. But we cannot say this of the suffering souls, for they do not see God. All these difficulties only amount to saying that we do not know any means by which the dead can see or learn what passes on earth. But if God wills that they should learn it, the difficulties are no difficulty at all. Our reason for expecting God to will it is the bond of love which he has set up between all the members of the Communion of Saints, which is His Church. We are praying for these souls because He loves them, and because for His sake we love them. It seems natural to expect that they will know of our prayers. As to their not being able to pray even for themselves, it is true, as we have seen, that their whole activity is a burning love for God, and the root of their suffering is that they are hindered in this love by the stains of their sins. That intense love will find food and cause of joy in seeing the bond of love that He had made between us, and the suffering soul, in seeing how He has moved us to pray for it, in wishing that He will return good to us for the good we have done. And that wish, if God allows it to exist in the soul, is in effect a prayer for us. For all depends on the will of God. We only know that it seems, as far as we can see, worthy of God's holiness and goodness to allow these suffering souls to help us; and therefore we know that if He will allow it, all the difficulties that we see in the way of doing it are due simply to the littleness of our understanding.

The   Church  encourages  us  to gain indulgences and offer them for the suffering souls. But in doing so, she calls our attention to the essential difference between these and the indulgences she offers to ourselves. Over us she has the power of binding and loosing; and she offers to loose us from some of the punishment due to our forgiven sins, on condition that we do the good works, prayer, fasting and alms-deeds, which she prescribes. Not that she can guarantee that we shall do these works well enough to gain the offered remission, any more than she can guarantee that we shall make a good confession and be forgiven the guilt of our sins. But in either case, if we do our part rightly she has the power from God to loose us—first in confession from the guilt of sins, and then by indulgence from the punishment still due for those sins. But she has no such power of binding and loosing the dead. They have passed from the shepherding of Peter to the Good Shepherd Himself, "God, to Whom alone it belongs to give healing after death." All that the Church can do now for them is to entreat Him; to offer Him prayers, sacrifices, penances, which may be accepted for some of these souls, in the same spirit of brotherhood in which His sacrifice was accepted for the souls of all.

Our prayers ask that the souls may be cleansed, and may reach their reward. For the cleansing of souls, the Church asks God's indulgence: that they may have forgiveness of all sins, be made pure and disentangled from sins; that any stains clinging to them from contact with earth may be wiped away, God pouring on them the unfailing dew of His mercy. For their reward in heaven, we ask eternal rest, light perpetual, the company of the saints, a home of refreshment, of blissful calm, clear light. And all is summed up in "May they repose in Thy love."

WHY ARE MANY MASSES said for one soul, when the power of a single Mass is infinite? We can only see why this is when we have brought before our mind the full meaning of sin and redemption and atonement.

In every Mass Our Lord Himself is the chief offerer. There He continues to offer what He offered on the Cross—His death, the sacrifice of His life, His Body and Blood delivered up and shed—for atonement to God and for the redemption of man. By making this offering, He wins for men all the grace and forgiveness and reward that will ever be received by each soul He has created. For each soul in purgatory, therefore, Our Lord's own offering wins purification from the stains of its sins and final entrance to heaven. The question therefore is, what difference will be made to this soul by my joining my mind and will on a particular morning with Our Lord as He makes His offering of Himself? Clearly we must not think that His offering made by Himself alone would leave the soul to suffer for years, but my joining with Him will end the souls's suffering at once. We must remember that, had Our Lord not offered His life for us, neither the soul's own sufferings nor the prayers of its friends would be of any avail towards purifying it from sin. Whatever these sufferings and prayers do for the soul, all is due to the Mass, in which Our Lord offers His sacrifice. Again, we must remember that the spiritual good done to us by God's grace is limited by our willingness to receive it, and likewise by the state and needs of our soul. When we need purification, we cannot yet receive the graces that saints get. God is willing to give grace without limit, but we are not willing or able to receive it because we are attached to unworthy things. Consequently, some souls during their life on earth earned that they should be helped by the prayers of their friends after death; and others did not. For the former class, Almighty God has willed that their purification in sufferings should be aided by the prayers offered for them by the Church on earth. When we pray for them and offer Masses for them, we are not winning Him to change His appointed plan for bringing those souls to heaven; we are simply carrying it out.

We feel instinctively and rightly that it is better to offer the Mass than any other good work, prayer or penance; because these others are merely our own unworthy and faulty efforts, whereas the Mass is the Immaculate Sacrifice of the Lamb of God. We still want to know, then, what difference it makes to the fruits of the Mass when I join in offering it. It would be blasphemous to think that the Mass earns any more fruit from my joining in it. But Our Lord does mean that our asking and our offering His sacrifice shall make some difference, not in the winning of grace, but in the receiving of grace into souls. And first into our own souls. The whole reason He made Mass was in order that we might take into our souls His own high love, that longs to offer worthy worship to God, not only from His own heart, but from all hearts; and that having conceived this love, we might have a worthy offering to make to God. By this love we become His partners in sanctifying not only our own souls but the souls of others also. In this world He uses those who have His love to spread it to those who have not; to win our brother to God, to preach His gospel to all nations. But in making us partners in His love. He does not make us partners in His knowledge. "It is not for you to know." When we pray for souls in this world or in purgatory, we must not expect to know the results of our prayers, much less tell Him what ought to be their results. He wants our prayers to help in His work: that is our sufficient guarantee that our prayers are not wasted. But to know the results we must wait for the day of the Lord. Meantime, He bids us keep asking, knocking; pray without ceasing, and faint not. So we never cease praying and offering Masses for a departed soul till we have surety that it is among the blessed in heaven, through the Church proclaiming that person Blessed or Saint.

Therefore, when the Mass is offered for a suffering soul, the question is not what this most holy and spotless sacrifice will win, but what my offering of it will win for that soul. And this depends first on how far I am filled with divine love. Our Lord's love for God and for men and for holiness. When this love entirely possesses a saint and moves him to pray, he is truly asking in Our Lord's Name, and his prayers will be granted. Sometimes the saints have found they could not pray, when they were going to ask something that God did not mean to grant. We who are not saints know how poor are our prayers and from what an unloving heart they come, and therefore we ask again and again. He bade us continue knocking and asking; and by constant trying to ask well, we hope some day to ask worthily. And, secondly, the fruit of my prayers for a particular soul depends on the fitness of that soul to receive grace or mercy. For it may be that some souls have on earth deserved to suffer the whole of their penance themselves and receive no relief through others' prayers, like the servant in the parable, who refused mercy to others and asked it for himself.

We call them the Holy Souls because they are in the grace and love of God; they have won heaven, are only waiting to enter. Their active life now consists wholly in that love between God and the soul which we call the supernatural life of the soul. God's love for them keeps their answering love on fire, ceaselessly yearning towards Him; and by the agony of that burning love "the Almighty and Merciful Lord looses them from the bonds of their sins."

Suffering for sins is twofold. First there is the sinless suffering of the Lamb of God, "who His own self bore our sins in His Body on the tree, that we being dead to sins should live to justice; by whose stripes we were healed." This suffering is shared by His sinless Mother and by many of His innocent saints. Because they are near to Him, they are privileged to drink of the chalice of suffering that He drank of, and to be baptized in His baptism of blood for the sins of the world. Secondly, there is the sinner's suffering in this world or the next to atone for his own sins, a suffering we take up with shame as men who in the sight of heaven have wrought mischief against God and disfigured His image in their own souls. By this suffering we painfully restore our lost likeness to God. But, even in our misery, Jesus invites us in this world to join with Him in working and suffering for the souls of other sinners, and so to have some part with His holy Apostles and martyrs. This we can do by offering prayers and penance for the suffering souls in Purgatory .

MAY THE PRAYER of Thy suppliants profit the souls of Thy servants and handmaids, we beseech Thee, O Lord, that Thou mayst free them from all sins and make them sharers in Thy redemption.

Lux aeterna luceat eis, Domine