November: a time to remember our beloved dead, contemplate purgatory

Monsignor Patrick S. Brennan

November is the month in which we remember our dead and pray for them, a long-standing Catholic tradition.  Praying for the dead is closely associated with our belief in purgatory, that “all who die in God’s grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death, they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven” (CC, #1030).*  Most of us grow up understanding purgatory as a place, a fiery torture chamber, that burned away our sins.

While the Church still teaches the truth of purgatory, the understanding of what it is and what it means to the person has developed quite a bit.  While western Catholic theology has viewed purgatory from a legal-juridical and penal standpoint, eastern Catholic theology has seen purgatory in terms of growth and maturation, rather than in terms of punishment.  In both cases, purgatory would be a process of conforming ourselves more and more closely to the person of Christ.  As I imagine it, we stand before Christ our Savior, and we become “like Him for we see Him as He is” (1 John 3:2).  In this encounter with Christ, we see our own need for purification; and, in short, the love of Christ overwhelms us, purifies us, cleanses us, and we enter into the blessedness of heaven.  I would emphasize again that purgatory assures us of eternal salvation (we are saved, if “in purgatory”).  And rather than thinking of time in purgatory (there is no time after death), it is better to think of our purification in terms of the depth of our sins. As one author put it, “Purgatory is neither long nor short; it is intense in proportion to the need of purgation in the individual person” (Zachary Hayes, Visions of a Future, p. 115).

As I mentioned before, judgment takes place immediately upon death, and each person receives “either entrance into the blessedness of heaven . . . or immediate and everlasting damnation” (CC, #1022).  Heaven is our hope; and heaven is our destiny: to be with God into eternity.  Heaven is “the ultimate end and fulfillment of the deepest human longings, the state of supreme, definitive happiness” (CC, #1024).  We all wonder what heaven will be like—there are some very fanciful descriptions of heaven (e.g., all the pizza we can eat); but “no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Corinthians 2:9).  In heaven, we have the capacity for the “beatific vision,” to contemplate God in his heavenly glory.  One description of heaven I find attractive and consoling is an infinite capacity to give and receive love.  No limits!

If we choose not to love, we cannot be with God, either now or into eternity.  “This state of self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called ‘hell’” (CC, #1033).  The Church affirms that those who die in the state of mortal sin “descend into hell.”  The chief punishment of hell “is eternal separation from God,” which means an eternal absence of love and happiness.  We must understand that this judgment does not come to us from the outside (i.e., from God); rather, it is the result of our own decisions.  The choice is ours: to love God and neighbor, or not.  Therefore, choose life.

— By Monsignor Patrick S. Brennan

The abbreviation "CC," followed by a number, is a reference to a numbered paragraph in the published Catechism of the Catholic Church.