How can we make sense today of the idea of purgatory? Jim Corkery SJ offers some contemporary images and understanding.
The fact that Christians have prayed for the dead from the earliest times is a striking expression of their belief that some kind of purification takes place after death. The traditional word used for this purification (or purgation) is ‘purgatory’. Purgatory is believed to be necessary in order that the distance that we put between ourselves and God by sinning may be overcome. The prayers of those who are still alive are seen as helping, in some way, towards bridging this distance.
History of the notion
The notion of purgatory has a long history. The idea of purification after death was present quite early in the Church’s life. It is not clear, however, that purgatory was understood to be a particular ‘place’ until towards the end of the twelfth century. The view then developed that those in purgatory remained there for a period of time, in proportion to the number and kind of the sins that they had committed.
Much controversy grew up after purgatory began to be seen in this way. Eastern Orthodox Christians thought that the Roman Catholics were placing too great an emphasis on purgatory as punishment. The sixteenth century Protestant reformers rejected the idea that the prayers of the living could be any real help to the dead. But the Council of Trent (1545-1563) taught that purgatory exists, and that those who are there can be aided by our prayers and good works, and especially by the sacrifice of the Mass. The Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) reaffirmed this teaching.
The Bible’s contribution
Two things follow from what I have just written. The first is that the Church has by no means cast aside its teaching on purgatory. The second is that there are limits to what we can know, in terms of precision and detail, about purgatory.
The Bible is not very helpful in bringing us further knowledge. There are texts in the New Testament that provide for the possibility of some sins being forgiven in this world and some in the next (see Matthew 12:32 & 1 Corinthians 3:11-15). But it cannot be said that these texts teach the doctrine of purgatory directly. The Bible is clearly open to the Church’s teaching on purgatory, but it does not present it in a clear and unambiguous way.
Understanding purgatory today
How can we make sense today of the idea of purgatory? Theologians now tend to speak of it not so much as a place or as a period of time, but rather as an aspect of what happens in the encounter between God and the person who dies.
They say something like this. God is Love. And when a person comes face to face with the love that God is, all that is not love in that person stands out, like darkness in the presence of the light. God’s light shows up our darkness; and it hurts.
When you offend someone who nevertheless continues to love you, so that you see the light of love shining brightly, it burns into the darkness of your heart and you feel the pain and shame; but you feel joy too. Similarly God, who is Love, burns into the darkness of our unlove, healing and overcoming it. It is a painful healing, not because God directly inflicts suffering upon us, but rather in the way that our eyes feel pain when we move from darkness into light.
It is the pain of being straightened out after having been bent crooked. It is like iodine on a wound, burning and healing all at once. It is the positive pain of purification. It is the final step in our journey out of the darkness of sin and death into the ‘bright promise of immortality’.
This article first appeared in the Messenger, a publication of the Irish Jesuits.
