IS THERE A PLACE CALLED PURGATORY?

10/17/18

The concept of purgatory is an often heated point of contention between Protestants and Catholics.   Purgatory is a major tenet of Catholicism; it’s not up there with transubstantiation and the authority of the Pope, but isn’t far behind, about on a par with the communion of saints and the veneration of Mary.   Many Catholic traditions, like All Souls Day, indulgences, and purgatorial societies, have as their basis the belief in purgatory.

Protestant denominations, on the other hand, are opposed, sometimes vehemently opposed, to the very concept of purgatory for a number of reasons, the most salient of which are the very origins of the Protestantism and the lack of scriptural support for a place called purgatory.   The Reformation had its origins in Martin Luther’s revulsion toward, and vehement protest against, the selling of indulgences to finance the reconstruction of St. Peter’s Basilica.   If Catholics didn’t insist on the existence of purgatory and argue that there are ways to shorten one’s stay there, there might (but probably wouldn’t) have been no Reformation and hence no Protestantism.   When you combine those considerations with the lack of scriptural support for purgatory, it is no wonder that the Protestant faiths, grounded in sola scriptura, or scripture as the sole foundation of faith, are not about to concede on this point.

As a Catholic, I suppose I believe that there is a place called purgatory, but I don’t think that it is the “hell-light” place of fire and punishment, the place to which angels descend to release those who have done their time, that is portrayed in many works of renaissance art that can be seen in many older Catholic churches today.   So if purgatory exists, but it’s not the milder version of hell in which that great theologian Paulie Walnuts Gualtieri could do 10,000 years standing on his head, what is it?

To understand purgatory, one has to understand heaven.   While no one can understand heaven…

“No ear has ever heard, no eye ever seen, any God but you doing such deeds for those who wait for him,” Isaiah 64,3

and

“What has not seen, and ear has not heard, and what has not entered the human heart, what God has prepared for those who love him,”  1 Corinthians 2,9,

…we have all formed our human conceptions, however frail those conceptions might be, of what heaven is like.   Yours truly has come to the conclusion that heaven is not, depending on the person contemplating the perfect place to spend eternity, endless golf courses, beaches, casinos, neighborhood taverns, great old movies, or Big 10 games in overtime.   Even a conception of heaven that might immediately appeal to yours truly, i.e., a never closing, always sunny and 80 degrees in the air and 65 degrees in the water Centennial Beach in Naperville that is immediately adjacent to a White Castle where the burgers are always done just right, the onion rings are always fried to crispy perfection, and the iced tea never runs out, is not the way heaven is.  

Heaven is, at least according to this writer’s limited understanding, a place that is characterized by endless service to one’s fellow human beings.    Huh?   Endless service?   How can that be fun, or even joyous?   Think about it.   What have been the happiest, most fulfilling moments in your life?   Haven’t they occurred when you were doing something for somebody who needed and appreciated what you had done for him or her?   Yeah, holes-in-one, daring leaps off the high board, your alma mater’s victory in overtime, your kid’s graduation day, a big bonus, or an immensely profitable trade that none but you saw coming are terrific.   But do the feelings such pleasantries engender genuinely compare to the feeling one derives from helping a stranger find his way in your home town, providing a hungry kid a good meal and/or a chance at a decent education, or comforting a friend in the wake of a loss of a loved one?   Think about that joyous, yet fleeting, feeling you get inside when you have done something that was genuinely good, selfless, effective, and needed.   Does it ever get any better than that?   Heaven is that feeling…but it never ends.

How many of us, though, are prepared for the life of eternal service and extension of one’s self that is heaven?   I have to confess that, at least at this point, endless summers at Centennial Beach with the White Castle next door are more appealing.    And I suspect most people would be disappointed to learn that heaven is a place not of endless indulgence but, rather, of endless service.   There are probably a few people who find an eternal life of service appealing, but most of them live in convents and/or work in places characterized largely by poverty and human misery, and doubtless know God very, very well.   Often, such people may not be pleased with the way God has treated them, but they nonetheless soldier on.   That, however, is grist for another post.

The above description does not match most of us, however.   We simply are not ready for an eternal life of service; I know I’m not.   In fact, some of us, if we were to be confronted with a heaven of service, may not even choose to go there, at least at this point, which is grist for yet another post.   That is where purgatory comes in; it is a place in which we further adjust our thinking to God’s thinking, a place in which we more closely conform our will to the will of God.   We all have a spark of God in us; we all get that glimpse of nirvana when we do something good for somebody else.   For some, that spark has grown into a conflagration; those people will not need much adjustment and hence won’t spend much “time” in purgatory.   But I, and I suspect most of us, will need plenty of “time” to adjust our will to God’s will.   We can do a lot of that while we’re here; that is, after all, our ultimate reason for being here.   But most of us have a lot of work to do in this area, and purgatory is the place where we will do much of it.   

Or maybe there is no purgatory and our time in heaven, in the very and close presence of God, comes immediately after mortal death.    And, in all likelihood, given the limitations of the human mind, my, and everyone’s, conception of heaven is nowhere near right; after all, God is in the business of miracles, including miraculous places and miraculous transformations.   But, for now, I think the conception of heaven as a place of never-ending service and the euphoria such service brings is not far off, at least by human standards applied to a divine concept.

All God’s blessings, now and forever.

All God’s blessings, now and forever.