explanation on purgatory

Quotes from different sources:

these parts in the catechism were helpful in understanding the grace of purgatory:

IN regard to purgatory I think the catechism helps when it explains why we have penance here:

1459 Many sins wrong our neighbor. One must do what is possible in order to repair the harm (e.g., return stolen goods, restore the reputation of someone slandered, pay compensation for injuries). Simple justice requires as much. But sin also injures and weakens the sinner himself, as well as his relationships with God and neighbor. Absolution takes away sin, but it does not remedy all the disorders sin has caused. Raised up from sin, the sinner must still recover his full spiritual health by doing something more to make amends for the sin: he must "make satisfaction for" or "expiate" his sins. This satisfaction is also called "penance."

and then on the section on indulgences explains more about this here:

1472 To understand this doctrine and practice of the Church, it is necessary to understand that sin has a double consequence. Grave sin deprives us of communion with God and therefore makes us incapable of eternal life, the privation of which is called the "eternal punishment" of sin. On the other hand every sin, even venial, entails an unhealthy attachment to creatures, which must be purified either here on earth, or after death in the state called Purgatory. This purification frees one from what is called the "temporal punishment" of sin. These two punishments must not be conceived of as a kind of vengeance inflicted by God from without, but as following from the very nature of sin. A conversion which proceeds from a fervent charity can attain the complete purification of the sinner in such a way that no punishment would remain.

1473 The forgiveness of sin and restoration of communion with God entail the remission of the eternal punishment of sin, but temporal punishment of sin remains. While patiently bearing sufferings and trials of all kinds and, when the day comes, serenely facing death, the Christian must strive to accept this temporal punishment of sin as a grace. He should strive by works of mercy and charity, as well as by prayer and the various practices of penance, to put off completely the "old man" and to put on the "new man."⁸⁵

^{So I think these statements help to understand that God is being gracious in preparing us to live with him. That he has to heal and purify the effects sin has and had on our lives and make us achieve the holiness so we can enjoy heaven. Although our sin is forgiven we have had damage in our lives from our sin and this is why we do penance and why there is a purgatory after death if we are not ready--they configure us to Christ}

good explanation here http://pontifications.wordpress.com/purgatory/ or on readability http://www.readability.com/articles/b1ylfiec

from this:

The dogmatic teaching of the Catholic Church on the doctrine of Purgatory is limited and specific. In 1439 the Council of Florence declared:

It has likewise defined that, if those truly penitent have departed in the love of God, before they have made satisfaction by worthy fruits of penance for sins of commission and omission, the souls of these are cleansed after death by purgatorial punishments; and so that they may be released from punishments of this kind, the suffrages of the living faithful are of advantage to them, namely, the sacrifices of Masses, prayers, and almsgiving, and other works of piety, which are customarily performed by the faithful for other faithful according to the institutions of the Church.

and

 The substance of the Florentine dogma was later reiterated by the Council of Trent in response to Protestant denials. The Catholic dogma of Purgatory may be succinctly stated under two points:

(1) Those who die in a state of grace but imperfect holiness and freedom must undergo a process of final purification.

(2) Those who undergo final purification are aided by the prayers, suffrages, and ascetical and charitable works of the Church.

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In the Catechism we read:

To understand this doctrine and practice of the Church [indulgences], it is necessary to understand that sin has a double consequence. Grave sin deprives us of communion with God and therefore makes us incapable of eternal life, the privation of which is called the ‘eternal punishment’ of sin. On the other hand every sin, even venial, entails an unhealthy attachment to creatures, which must be purified either here on earth, or after death in the state called Purgatory. This purification frees one from what is called the ‘temporal punishment’ of sin. These two punishments must not be conceived of as a kind of vengeance inflicted by God from without, but as following from the very nature of sin. A conversion which proceeds from a fervent charity can attain the complete purification of the sinner in such a way that no punishment would remain.

The forgiveness of sin and restoration of communion with God entail the remission of the eternal punishment of sin, but temporal punishment of sin remains. While patiently bearing sufferings and trials of all kinds and, when the day comes, serenely facing death, the Christian must strive to accept this temporal punishment of sin as a grace. He should strive by works of mercy and charity, as well as by prayer and the various practices of penance, to put off completely the “old man” and to put on the “new man.” (CCC 1472-73)

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 The clarification of temporal punishment becomes explicit in the teaching of John Paul II. In his catechetical lecture on indulgences, the Pope speaks of the negative effects which sin causes in the sinner—“what the theological tradition calls the ‘punishments’ and ‘remains’ of sin.” Absolution restores the relationship between God and man, but it does not immediately and perfectly repair the damage sin has done to the sinner himself:

At first sight, to speak of punishment after sacramental forgiveness might seem inconsistent. The Old Testament, however, shows us how normal it is to undergo reparative punishment after forgiveness. God, after describing himself as “a God merciful and gracious … forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin”, adds: “yet not without punishing” (Ex 34:6-7). In the Second Book of Samuel, King David’s humble confession after his grave sin obtains God’s forgiveness (cf. 2 Sm 12:13), but not the prevention of the foretold chastisement (cf. ibid., 12:11; 16:21). God’s fatherly love does not rule out punishment, even if the latter must always be understood as part of a merciful justice that re-establishes the violated order for the sake of man’s own good (cf. Heb 12:4-11).

In this context temporal punishment expresses the condition of suffering of those who, although reconciled with God, are still marked by those “remains” of sin which do not leave them totally open to grace. Precisely for the sake of complete healing, the sinner is called to undertake a journey of conversion towards the fullness of love.

In this process God’s mercy comes to his aid in special ways. The temporal punishment itself serves as “medicine” to the extent that the person allows it to challenge him to undertake his own profound conversion. This is the meaning of the “satisfaction” required in the sacrament of Penance.

Once it becomes clear that the temporal punishment of sin is not a punishment externally imposed by God but rather is identical to the deleterious effects of sin upon the sinner, then it becomes clear that indulgences, for example, can no longer be understood as a mechanical removal of sanction or the cancellation of debt. Indulgences are perhaps better understood as an ecclesial form of intercession within the communion of saints:

The Church has a treasury, then, which is “dispensed” as it were through indulgences. This “distribution” should not be understood as a sort of automatic transfer, as if we were speaking of “things.” It is instead the expression of the Church’s full confidence of being heard by the Father when—in view of Christ’s merits and, by his gift, those of Our Lady and the saints—she asks him to mitigate or cancel the painful aspect of punishment by fostering its medicinal aspect through other channels of grace. In the unfathomable mystery of divine wisdom, this gift of intercession can also benefit the faithful departed, who receive its fruits in a way appropriate to their condition.
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Nor is it surprising that many Catholic theologians and teachers find that they may, and perhaps must, now speak of Purgatory without employing the juridical categories of the past. I reference, for example, Pope John Paul II’s catechesis on Purgatory. In his teaching the Pope avoids altogether the language of punishment and debt. He speaks rather of imperfect openness to God and the need for perfect integrity and purity of heart if we are to realize our communion with our Creator. “Every trace of attachment to evil must be eliminated, every imperfection of the soul corrected,” he states. “Purification must be complete, and indeed this is precisely what is meant by the Church’s teaching on purgatory. The term does not indicate a place, but a condition of existence. Those who, after death, exist in a state of purification, are already in the love of Christ who removes from them the remnants of imperfection.”
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quoWhat does the Catholic doctrine of Purgatory mean? Pope Benedict XVI takes up this question in his most recent encyclical, Spe Salvi.

“With death,” writes the Holy Father, “our life-choice becomes definitive—our life stands before the judge.” We come into the holy presence of our creator as persons whose lives have taken on certain shape. Our stories have been written; our personal narratives have reached decisive conclusion; the trial is finished. We have become, in the most fundamental sense, the kind of persons we are and shall ever be. We stand before the living God as individuals who have either rejected his love and mercy or who have embraced his love and mercy.

There can be people, Benedict warns, who have destroyed in their hearts the desire for truth and the readiness to love. Hatred, greed, and mendacity control and determine them. Such individuals are truly damned; they have damned themselves. “In such people all would be beyond remedy and the destruction of good would be irrevocable: this is what we mean by the word Hell.” There can also be people who are completely permeated by God. Their hearts are filled with love. Their entire being is consecrated to God, who is the consummation of “what they already are.” These are the saints. They die into the immediate vision of God. But in between, as it were, are those who die in a deep interior openness to love, to truth, to God, but whose concrete choices have been “covered over by ever new compromises with evil—much filth covers purity, but the thirst for purity remains and it still constantly re-emerges from all that is base and remains present in the soul.” What happens to these individuals? Will their impurity suddenly cease to matter?
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But what is this fire? In the past many Western theologians have interpreted the purgatorial fire as a material fire, but Benedict chooses a symbolic interpretation—the fire is Christ Jesus himself!

Some recent theologians are of the opinion that the fire which both burns and saves is Christ himself, the Judge and Saviour. The encounter with him is the decisive act of judgement. Before his gaze all falsehood melts away. This encounter with him, as it burns us, transforms and frees us, allowing us to become truly ourselves. All that we build during our lives can prove to be mere straw, pure bluster, and it collapses. Yet in the pain of this encounter, when the impurity and sickness of our lives become evident to us, there lies salvation. His gaze, the touch of his heart heals us through an undeniably painful transformation “as through fire”. But it is a blessed pain, in which the holy power of his love sears through us like a flame, enabling us to become totally ourselves and thus totally of God. In this way the inter-relation between justice and grace also becomes clear: the way we live our lives is not immaterial, but our defilement does not stain us for ever if we have at least continued to reach out towards Christ, towards truth and towards love. Indeed, it has already been burned away through Christ’s Passion. At the moment of judgement we experience and we absorb the overwhelming power of his love over all the evil in the world and in ourselves. The pain of love becomes our salvation and our joy.

The Pope thus proposes an understanding of Purgatory as personal encounter with the Savior who is infinite love and grace. In the eschatological moment, the duration of which transcends earthly reckoning, we are liberated from self-deception and bondage. Christ pulls us to himself, as through fire. The dross of guilt is burnt away. We are purified of all remaining egoism. The purgatorial transformation necessarily implies suffering, as we submit to the fire of love and surrender our sins and attachments, yet in the midst of this suffering we rejoice in the gift of our healing and deliverance.

Benedict elaborated this understanding of Christ’s fiery love in his bookEschatology, originally published in 1977:

Purgatory is not, as Tertullian thought, some kind of supra-worldly concentration camp where man is forced to undergo punishment in a more or less arbitrary fashion. Rather is it the inwardly necessary process of transformation in which a person becomes capable of Christ, capable of God and thus capable of unity with the whole communion of saints. Simply to look at people with any degree of realism at all is to grasp the necessity of such a process. It does not replace grace by works, but allows the former to achieve its full victory precisely as grace. What actually saves is the full assent of faith. But in most of us, that basic option is buried under a great deal of wood, hay and straw. Only with difficulty can it peer out from behind the latticework of an egoism we are powerless to pull down with our own hands. Man is the recipient of the divine mercy, yet this does not exonerate him from the need to be transformed. Encounter with the Lord is this transformation. It is the fire that burns away our dross and re-forms us to be vessels of eternal joy. (pp. 230-231)

Though the Latin tradition has typically construed the period of purgatorial transformation in temporal terms, Benedict recognizes the inappropriateness of this construal. The duration of transformation cannot be quantified according to any measure that we can understand. The transformation is indeed a transition, but its measure “lies in the unsoundable depths of existence, in a passing-over where we are burned ere we are transformed” (p. 230). Benedict would also have us understand that the first judgment at the moment of death is ultimately identical to the final judgment at the Great Assize; the two are indistinguishable. “A person’s entry into the realm of manifest reality,” Benedict writes, “is an entry into his definitive destiny and thus an immersion in eschatological fire” (p. 230).

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The interpretation of the Last Things in terms of personal encounter has been widely received within the Catholic Church. A good example is philosopher Peter Kreeft’s popular and insightful work Every Thing You Ever Wanted to Know About Heaven, but Never Dreamed of Asking [Heaven]. Kreeft devotes a chapter to the theme of Purgatory. He also briefly discusses Purgatory in his book Catholic Christianity [CC].

Kreeft notes that the disagreement between Catholics and Protestants on Purgatory seems to be intractable, yet he believes it is resolvable, “if we will only look at Purgatory as the saints do” (Heaven, p. 62). Purgatory, argues Kreeft, logically follows from two facts: our imperfection on earth and our perfection in Heaven. “At the moment of death,” he writes, “most of us are not completely sanctified (purified, made holy), even though we are justified, or saved by having been baptized into Christ’s Body and having thereby received God’s supernatural life into our souls, having accepted him by faith and not having rejected him by unrepented mortal sin” (CC, p. 149). But Heaven requires perfect holiness, not as an arbitrarily-imposed condition, but because Heaven simply is a perfect communion of love and self-giving. No one can love God with all of his heart and soul and body until he has been purified of twisted self-love and liberated from attachments and delusion. If we are not ready for Heaven when we die, then we must somehow be made ready beyond death. Purgatory refers to this process of being made ready for Heaven. Kreeft identifies four essential notes of Purgatory (Heaven, pp. 62-63):

1) Purgatory is a part of Heaven. It is not a distinct “place” between Heaven and Hell. Purgatory is Heaven’s anteroom in which the elect are prepared, cleansed, healed, matured, and sanctified. It is the wash-room, where we shed our dirty clothes and plunge into a hot bath before entering the majestic palace of the King. Purgatory is therefore temporary. There are only two eternal destinies—Heaven and Hell.

2) Purgatory is joyful, not gloomy. Whatever pain may attend the process of purification, it does not diminish the profound joy and triumph of Purgatory. The holy souls have passed through death into life and know that their ultimate destiny is now secure. The sufferings of Purgatory are more desirable than the most ecstatic pleasures on earth.

3) Purgtory is a place of sanctification, not justification. Only the forgiven and justified enter into the final purification. Sin is not paid for in Purgatory but surgically removed. The doctrine of Purgatory neither challenges nor diminishes the finished work of Christ on the cross.

4) Purgatory is a place of education, not works. Purgatory is not a second chance to merit salvation through good deeds but an opportunity to acquire “a full understanding of deeds already done during our first and only chance, and a full disposal of all that needs to be disposed.”

Kreeft acknowledges the long-standing tradition that speaks of Purgatory as the expiation of the temporal punishment due to our sins, but he insists that this punishment must be interpreted by its eschatological purpose—the transformation of sinners into saints:

The reason for purgatory is not the past, not an external, legal punishment for past sins, as if our relationship with God were still under the old law. Rather, its reason is the future; it is our rehabilitation, it is training for heaven. For our relationship with God has been radically changed by Christ; we are adopted as his children, and our relationship is now fundamentally filial and familial, not legal. Purgatory is God’s loving parental discipline (see Heb 12:5-14). (CC, pp. 149-150)

Kreeft’s favorite image of Purgatory is that of reading a book: “Purgatory is reading the already-written book of your life with total understanding and acceptance—the total understanding that comes only from total acceptance” (Heaven, 65). With the story of our mortal lives having reached conclusion, we can step back and read and re-read our stories from God’s perspective, without fear of condemnation, without rationalization and self-deception. Purgatory provides us the freedom to confront our histories and understand our choices and their consequences for ourselves and most importantly for others. “Since in Purgatory,” Kreeft explains, “we do not make different choices but only see and understand clearly all our past choices, the only virtue there is knowledge, and education there does cure all moral ills” (p. 64).
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Sin is purged by sharing in our destiny as light. We see the meaning and the effects of all our sins in Purgatory—their effects on others as well as ourselves, both directly and indirectly, through chains of influence presently invisible, chains so long and effectual that we would be overwhelmed with responsibility if we saw them now. Only a few can endure the saint’s insight that “we are each responsible for all.” … In Purgatory I will experience all the harm I have done, with sensitized and mature conscience. This is a suffering both more intense and more useful than fire or merely physical pain. But I will experience it also with the compassion and forgiveness of God, forgiving myself as God forgives me. … After we remember sin, we can forget it; after we take it seriously, we can laugh at it: after we share in the sufferings of the God Who experienced Hell for us (“My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?”), we can share in His “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Our experience and forgiveness will be perfect in Purgatory because there we will know. (pp. 68-69)......................

and quoting Walls-- 

Becoming persons who find their ultimate felicity in Heaven is the heart and center of salvation:

The joy and happiness of heaven is precisely the joy and happiness of salvation. Salvation is essentially a matter of loving God and being rightly related to him. This relationship is the source of our deepest delight and satisfaction. Heaven is not a place that could be enjoyed apart from loving God in the way made possible by salvation. There is no question of “going to” heaven if one is not the sort of person who has the sort of desires and affections for God that heaven satisfies. (p. 40)

 Walls is thus critical of forensic construals of justification that neatly cordon off sanctification. “The essence of salvation,” he explains, “is the real transformation that allows us to love God and enjoy fellowship with him. The element of forgiveness, although crucial, is secondary to this” (p. 50). To be declared righteous but never to become righteous is no salvation at all. The best in Reformation theology has always recognized the inseparable union of justification and sanctification, but this unity is often broken, he avers, in popular preaching and piety. The result is a portrayal of faith in Christ that “seems magical and void of moral and intellectual seriousness” (p. 41). Justification and sanctification cannot be divorced. We cannot honestly plead the atoning sacrifice of Christ and simultaneously refuse to become the kind of persons we are called by God to be, to become the kind of persons who are capable of enjoying Heaven. “To plead the atonement,” Walls continues, “we must acknowledge God as God. We must own his purposes for our lives and recognize them as good. That is, God’s purposes for us are indeed for our well-being and ultimate happiness and satisfaction. But we cannot merely ask God’s forgiveness and proceed with our purposes apart from God. To attempt to do this is to operate with a false valuation of both ourselves and of God” (p. 51). Human cooperation with grace would therefore seem to be indispensable in the process of salvation. We cannot by our own powers convert and heal ourselves. God must convert and heal us; yet he must do so, and does do so, in a way that elicits our free cooperation and involvement. In the words of Augustine: “But He who made you without your consent does not justify you without your consent. He made you without your knowledge but He does not justify you without your willing it.

te from comment 7 : http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2012/08/imputation-and-paradigms-a-reply-to-nicholas-batzig/

 According to the Church, those persons who die without sanctifying grace and without agape go to hell. Only persons who die in a state of grace but with a remaining debt of temporal punishment go to purgatory. But it is not necessary to die with a debt of temporal punishment. We should strive to die without any debt of temporal punishment, and it is possible to die in that state. It is not necessarily the case that if a person has an unconfessed venial sin, he must go to purgatory. What determines whether a person who dies in a state of grace goes to purgatory or directly to the beatific vision is whether he has a debt of temporal punishment, not whether he has remembered all his venial sins.
Souls in purgatory do not grow in agape; the time for merit and growth in agape is limited to this present life. So the souls in purgatory do not grow in righteousness per se.
Yet there are ways they can be further purified. One of these ways is relationally. The purpose of purgatory has been traditionally understood to be the removal of the debt of temporal punishment, not the debt of eternal punishment, because the debt of eternal punishment was already forgiven when these persons last repented of mortal sin before their death in a state of grace. The debt of temporal punishment is the debt owed to fellow creatures on account of injustices committed against them. As something owed to fellow creatures, this debt is relational in nature.
Another possible way in which these souls can be purified is by the removal from the soul of dispositional attachments to sin. The obvious objection to such a suggestion is that it seems prima facie to conflict with what I said above when I said that to have agape is to be perfectly righteousness. How can a person be perfectly righteous and yet still have dispositional attachments to sin? The answer to this question applies likewise to the Church’s teaching that concupiscence, which is a disposition in the lower appetites toward sin, is itself not a sin, and is simultaneously present in persons who are righteous by the presence of agape within their soul. See Section V of “Aquinas and Trent: Part 7.” The Fifth Session at the Council of Trent declared the following:
This concupiscence, which the Apostle sometimes calls sin, the holy council declares the Catholic Church has never understood to be called sin in the sense that it is truly and properly sin in those born again, but in the sense that it is of sin and inclines to sin. (Council of Trent, Session Five)
We know that concupiscence is something that we are supposed to battle and overcome during this life. Hence that same session of Trent said:
But this holy council perceives and confesses that in the one baptized there remains concupiscence or an inclination to sin, which, since it is left for us to wrestle with, cannot injure those who do not acquiesce but resist manfully by the grace of Jesus Christ; indeed, he who shall have striven lawfully shall be crowned.
(I love that phrase — “resist manfully by the grace of Jesus Christ”) So here’s the point. We can and must grow during this life in our mastery of concupiscence, and yet that growth is not the same as growth in agape, though the two kinds of growing may occur at the same time. Growth in our mastery of concupiscence is not growth in righteousness per se, but it is a growth in the conformity of the various powers of the soul, in their various dispositional aspects, to that agape in the will. This kind of purification is possible in purgatory. The perfection of the person who has just been baptized is perfection with respect to the essence of righteousness, but it does not entail perfection in every other respect — as I’ve just listed two additional respects in which we can be further purified in purgatory, even while not receiving a greater share of agape. Such purification should be understood not as the reception of a greater share of agape, but rather as a fuller participation by our composite nature in the measure of agape already received, as the righteousness we have received in the will extends into every facet of our complex being.
So the person just entering purgatory is perfect with respect to the essence of righteousness, but remains yet to be perfected with respect to the conformity of his whole being to that perfect righteousness he has already received.
Would the difference between the CCC statement 1030 and the Protestant one above be that the RC church does believe some are internally righteous before death and that the ones who are not go to Purgatory?
No, in Catholic doctrine, everyone who dies in a state of grace is internally righteous, i.e. has the essence of righteousness within them, by the presence of agape. In Protestant doctrine, no one who dies in a state of grace is internally righteous; without the extra nos imputed righteousness of Christ, every single person would go to hell.

From Father Angel:

First, let’s put down some cards on the table. The Protestants in the time of Luther considered purgatory to be a big Catholic racket for shaking people down for money.

Theologically, the Protestants considered the doctrine of purgatory to be a vile manipulation of the grief of those who missed the dead. They also saw purgatory as a consequence of “works salvation” where Catholics continued after death to “earn their salvation” by brownie points after death.

Purgatory is described in the polemics of 16th century debates to be a mockery of Jesus’ Blood Atonement. Through this doctrine especially, Catholics were spitting upon His cross so that priests could be glorified with their alleged powers of making propitiation for the sins of the dead.

The Catholic answer is that it is not the priest who makes propitiation or satisfaction for the dead. It is Jesus. He simply uses His priests for this ministry of mercy. The Catholic answer is that purgatory is not used to manipulate the grief of people who miss their dead. Rather, it is meant to comfort the sorrowing by assuring them that those who die in various sins have a chance at heaven still. Finally, Catholics answer that in a Christianity where fellowship and friendship among believers is so important, it does not make sense to tell Christians to love each other, and pray for each other while alive, but to have no prayer for brothers and sisters in Christ who have passed on. 

Catholics would say that a Christianity with no doctrine of the Communion of Saints and the suffrage and prayers for souls in purgatory isn’t a true Christianity. How can a true Christianity confess that intimate friendships all unravel and become void at death? It is as if death, without purgatory and prayer to the saints, has more power than Christian love, because it can snuff out these bonds of love. But isn’t the message of Jesus that love, friendships, and caring for each other, survive after death because He has taken the sting out of death’s power? Don’t we say that He keeps the loving bonds alive and well even after loved ones cross over? This will be a part 1.http://fatherangel.tumblr.com/post/31180414837/would-you-be-so-kind-to-tell-me-what-purgatory-is

part 2: http://fatherangel.tumblr.com/post/31182063622/what-is-purgatory-part-2

In the Bible, Jesus describes the need to repent and make our peace with God and our neighbor while we are on the way to judgment. Because once we die and face judgment, we will have to render an account to God for the actions in the body. God will not just wipe away and forget our willful disobedience to His commandments:

“Why do you not judge for yourselves what is right? If you are to go with your opponent before a magistrate, make an effort to settle the matter on the way; otherwise your opponent will turn you over to the judge, and the judge hand you over to the constable, and the constable throw you into prison. I say to you, you will not be released until you have paid the last penny” (Luke 12:57-59).

There is a “wipe away” theory among some Protestants when asked what happens when people die in their sins. What happens to the Christian teen who confesses Jesus as Lord, then gets dumped by a girlfriend or boyfriend, and then goes and steps in front of a train? Well, the teen will get a beautiful funeral with songs and praise and the preacher will assure everyone that this kid is looking down from heaven and “putting in a good word for us.”

Really? You kill yourself because you got dumped in a relationship and go straight to heaven? Your family is messed up but your happy? Your mom and dad can’t eat, they can’t sleep, they cry all the time and have nightmares, but your smiling down from heaven? 

What happened to “judge for yourselves what is right?” What happened to Jesus’ warning that we will be held accountable for the harm we do to others? Is it harmful to your parents, siblings, relatives, and friends that you stepped in front of a train and the coroner had to pick you up in pieces? Do you think when you face judgment for a sin you never had a chance to repent of that the gravity of taking your life and leaving an emotional train wreck for your family will really count for nothing?

And why are they doing all this praise and song at your funeral and talking about you being in heaven instead of praying that God have mercy on your soul? Because they are in denial. This is “wipe away” Christianity. Jesus died for us. He shed His Blood. So no matter what you do that is evil, if you are lucky to die while you are doing it, somehow the Blood of Jesus will just wipe away your having to answer for it.

Having sinful sex during which you die from a heart attack? It’s all right. Got wiped away. Driving the car while intoxicated with your buddies after a party and then you die in a collision? No problem. The Blood will wipe it away. It is a very happy and joyful idea, that you can commit terrible sins and if you live, you need to repent, go to church, get back to the Bible, and show you are not going to back slide anymore. But if you happen to die during those sins and don’t get a chance for repentance, it’s all right.

It will all just be forgotten by God and wiped away. But that isn’t Scriptural. The Lord is clear that when we are willfully disobedient to His law, we are accountable. There needs to be punishment, because God is just and He has sworn that He will reward just deeds and punish wicked deeds. You will not be released from this accountability to God until you have paid, in Jesus’ words, “the last penny.”

part 3: http://www.tumblr.com/dashboard/4/31216301965?lite

Here is the first part of my answer on purgatory, and here is the second part, and now this will be the last part. In those first two parts, I laid down the issue which Protestants found so disagreeable about purgatory—that it seems to say that the Blood Atonement of Jesus isn’t enough to forgive sinners but they are still expected to “pay” for sins even after death. The Protestant resolution is that at death, a person who is Christian and has put faith in the Name of Jesus has all their sins wiped away, even if at the hour of death they die while committing sin.

The problem with that position is that such a “wiping away” without repentance on the part of the sinner only takes into account Divine Mercy. It ignores the biblical teaching on Divine Justice, which Jesus spelled out clearly in Luke 12:59, that you will not be released from “prison” until you have paid “the last penny.”

Catholics reason that Christians can only call down upon themselves the propitiation of the Blood of Jesus if they have truly been accountable and repented for their misdeeds in the body. The power of the Blood of Jesus is not made void by purgatory. But rather purgatory shows us that every Christian must respond to this Blood in this lifetime or they will be held accountable even after death.

Some say, “no, that’s not possible. Jesus never spoke of sins being forgiven after you die. Jesus can only forgive sins before you die.” Well, actually, the Bible does speak of sins being forgiven after death also:

“And whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but he that shall speak against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, nor in the world to come” (Matthew 12:32).

The Bible says that sins against the Holy Spirit are not forgiven in this world “or the world to come” meaning after death. If there were no sins ever forgiven after death, it would have been unnecessary to give us this detail about “the world to come.” But by clarifying that sins against the Holy Ghost are neither forgiven before death or after death, the Bible is saying that some sins are indeed forgiven in the “world to come” or after you die, in purgatory.

“Prison” is a biblical way of speaking of purgatory. It is saying that a soul is judged and instead of entering heaven directly must go to some place of cleansing and purification. Once they enter that spiritual “prison” they must respond to their sin with true contrition and sorrow.

If in the body they were selfish and blind, in purgatory God allows them to see the full damage that their sins have caused to others to and to themselves. There they realize fully the Scripture’s teaching about why they could not go directly to heaven after death:

“There shall not enter into it any thing defiled” (Revelation 21:27).

On the question of what happens in purgatory, besides being purified of sin and cleansed so that you can enter heaven and finally see God face to face, I would turn to the story of the Rich Man and Lazarus:

“And lifting up his eyes when he was in torments, he saw Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom: And he cried, and said: Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, to cool my tongue: for I am tormented in this flame. And Abraham said to him: Son, remember that thou didst receive good things in thy lifetime, and likewise Lazareth evil things, but now he is comforted; and thou art tormented. And besides all this, between us and you, there is fixed a great chaos: so that they who would pass from hence to you, cannot, nor from thence come hither. And he said: Then, father, I beseech thee, that thou wouldst send him to my father’s house, for I have five brethren, That he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torments.” (Luke 16:23-29).

I actually find this biblical story to be very appropriate for understanding purgatory, not hell. In hell, the damned blaspheme God with curses and bitterness. But in this passage, a Rich Man who was callous and unconcerned for the poor undergoes a change. In his life, he ignored Lazarus, but in this place of punishment he undergoes a thorough attitude adjustment. Now he takes notice of Lazarus’ reward and his punishment.

In life, the Rich Man was not so concerned about warning his brothers to be more spiritual and to practice justice for the needy. He wore luxurious clothes and feasted on fine dining. But now he begs “Father Abraham” to send Lazarus’ spirit to his father’s house, to warn his five brothers so they will turn to God and not be punished also, apparently for neglecting the poor also.

The Rich Man does not behave like a damned soul in hell. His behavior is what we would expect of a soul in purgatory. We expect a soul to think about its sins. We expect a soul to be suffering and to beg for mercy (ask Lazarus “to cool my tongue”). We expect a soul in purgatory to finally have a holy perspective of charity and concern. We expect a soul in purgatory to grow in love for others. I believe this biblical story gives us a sense of the purification of purgatory, where a soul wakes up finally to have true love and charity, like this Rich Man now has for his brothers, and for the needy who were neglected while the dogs came to lick their sores (Lazarus).

Scripture does not use the word for purgatory. But Scripture gives us a clear sense that people are accountable to God. They will be judged. They will be expected to have repented for every sin, and if they die with unfinished business of sins which are not repented for, they will be sent by the Judge to that prison, where they will not be released until they have paid the last penny. God bless and take care! Fr. Angel

#purgatory

http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2010/02/the-tradition-and-the-lexicon/#comment-38203 from comment 186

 the Catholic distinction between eternal punishment and temporal punishment and the basis for that distinction. (See section 5 here.) What holds back those in purgatory from the Beatific Vision is not that God needs to get out of His system some additional wrath He failed to pour out on His Son for their sins (see “Catholic and Reformed Conceptions of the Atonement“), but that they owe a debt of temporal punishment. Moreover, the Church does not teach that purgatory is necessary for every person in order to enter heaven, but that it is necessary only for those who, though dying in a state of grace, still have a debt of temporal punishment on account of venial sin.

end of quote.

Perhaps these verses might apply as well:

1 Samuel 31:11-13 But when the inhabitants of Ja'besh-gil'ead heard what the Philistines had done to Saul, [12] all the valiant men arose, and went all night, and took the body of Saul and the bodies of his sons from the wall of Beth-shan; and they came to Jabesh and burnt them there. [13] And they took their bones and buried them under the tamarisk tree in Jabesh, and fasted seven days. (cf. 1 Chr 10:11-12)

2 Samuel 1:11-12 Then David took hold of his clothes, and rent them; and so did all the men who were with him; [12] and they mourned and wept and fasted until evening for Saul and forJonathan his son and for the people of the LORD and for the house of Israel, because they had fallen by the sword.

from comment 121 here http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2012/11/how-the-church-won-an-interview-with-jason-stellman/

Purgatory does not purge you from sin; it purges you from the temporal (not eternal) penalty due to sins that have been completely forgiven due to Spirit-wrought-agape-righteousness.

Then there is an article here : http://matt1618.freeyellow.com/purgatory.html
This gives some scriptural reasons for it.  Worth going there to read it

from chip:
The subject of purgatory has come up a lot lately in my life (by two Protestant friends of mine, and at the end of De Sales' Catholic Controversy which I just finished). I thought I'd share some of De Sales' arguments from Scripture and later from the Church, many of which I had never thought of, but which are pretty good.
I hope it's helpful. (By the way, I'm sending this to you all via B.C.C.  Hence, the somewhat impersonal nature of this email!)

# Baptism for the Dead
In the 1st of Corinthians, chap xv, appealing to it as praiseworthy and right, Paul says: "What shall they do who are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not again at all? Why then are they baptized for them?" This passage properly understood evidently shows that it was the custom of the primitive Church to watch, pray, fast for the souls of the departed. For, firstly, in the Scriptures to be baptized as often taken for afflictions and penances, as in S. Luke, chap xii, where Our Lord speaking of his Passion says, "I have a baptism wherewith I am to be baptized, and how am I straitened until it be accomplished!" and in S. Mark, chap x, he says, "Can you drink of the chalice that I drink of; or be baptized with the baptism wherewith I am baptized?" in which places Our Lord calls pains and afflictions baptism. This then is the sense of that Scripture: if the dead rise not again, what is the use of mortifying and afflicting oneself, of praying and fasting for the dead? And indeed this sentence of S. Paul resembles that of Machabees quoted above: "It is superfluous and vain to pray for the dead if the dead rise not again."... It must not be said that baptism of which S. Paul speaks is only a baptism of grief and tears, and not of fasts, prayers, and other works. For thus understood his conclusion would be very false... [for] should we not have more occasion to afflict ourselves by sadness for the death of friends if they rise no more-- losing all hope of ever seeing them again-- than if they do rise? ... Now it was not for those in Paradise, who had no need of it, nor for those in hell, who could not benefit form it; it was then for those in Purgatory.

# The World to Come
If there are some sins that can be pardoned in the other world, it is neither in hell nor in heaven, therefore, it is in Purgatory [as no unpardoned sinner may enter into heaven]. Now, that there are sins which are pardoned in the other world we prove, firstly by the passage of S. Matthew in chap xii, where Our Lord says that "there is a sin which cannot be forgiven either in this world or in the next", therefore, there are sins which can be forgiven in the other world... [The reformers] try to say that these words, "neither in this world nor in the world to come," only signify, for ever, or, never; as S. Mark says in chap iii, "shall never have forgiveness." That is quite true, but our reason loses none of its force on that account... S. Augustine, S. Gregory, Bede, S. Bernard, and those who have written against the Petrobusians, have used this passage in our sense, with such assurance that S. Bernard to declare this truth [of Purgatory's existence] brings forward nothing more, so much account does he make of this.

# The Parable of Prison
In S. Matthew (v), and in S. Luke (xii), "Make an agreement with thy adversary quickly, while thou art in the way with him; lest perhaps the adversary quickly, while thou art in the way with him; lest perhaps the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison. Amen, I say to thee, thou shalt not go out from thence until thou pay the last farthing." ... As in a large jail, there are many buildings; one for those who are damned, which is as it were for criminals, the other for those in Purgatory, which is as it were for debt. The farthing of which it is said "thou shalt not go out from thence till thou pay the last farthing," are little sins and infirmities as the farthing is the smallest money one can owe. We find from most ancient fathers that [they hold this passage to refer to Purgatory]: Turtullian, Cyprian, Origen, with Emissenus, S. Ambrose, S. Jerome, S. Bernard. When it is said "till thou pay the last farthing," is it not implied that one can pay it, and that one can so diminish the debt that there only remains at length its last farthing? But just as when it is said in the Psalm (cix), "Sit at my right hand until I make thy enemies," and so on, it properly follows that at length he will make his enemies his footstool; so when he says "thou shalt not go out till thou pay," he shows that at length he will pay or will be able to pay.

# Under the Earth
In the Apocalypse (v) "Who is worthy to open the book, and to loose the seven seals thereof? And no man was able neither in heaven, nor in earth, nor under the earth." And further down in the same chapter, "And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth... I heard all saying: To him that sitteth upon the throne and to the Lamb, benediction and honour and glory and power for ever and ever. And the four living creatures said Amen." Does he not hereby uphold a Church, in which God is praised under the earth? And what else can it be but that of Purgatory? (De Sales had previously established the somewhat obvious fact that none in hell would thus praise God, as Hell by definition is a persistence in the rejection of God.)

# The Councils
"If thy brother shall offend thee... tell the Church. And if he will not hear the Church let him be to thee as the heathen and the publican." Let us hear then what the Church says on this matter, in Africa, at the third Council of Carthage and at the fourth; in Spain, at the Council of Braga; in France, at the Council of Chalons, and at the second Council of Orleans; in Germany, at the Council of Worms; in Italy, at the sixth Council under Symmachus; in Greece, as may be seen in their synods, collected by Martin of Braga. And by all these Councils you will see that the Church approves of prayer for the departed, and consequently of Purgatory. Afterward, what she had defined by parts she defined in her general body at the Council of Lateran under Innocent III, at the Council of Florence in which all nations assisted, and lastly at the Council of Trent.
But what more holy answer from the Church would one have than that which is contained in all her Masses? Examine the Liturgies of S. James, S. Basil, S. Crysostom, S. Ambrose, which all the Oriental Christians still use; you will see there the commemoration of the dead, almost as it is seen in ours.

# The Fathers
Among the disciples of the Apostles, S. Clement and S. Denis. Afterward, S. Athanasius, S. Basil, S. Gregory Nazianzen, Ephrem, Cyril, Epiphanius, Cyrostom, Gregory Nyssen, Tertullian, Cyprian, Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine, Origin, Boethius, Hilary, that is, all antiquity... Calvin [himself] in book iii of his Institutions thus speaks, "More than 1300 years ago, it was received that prayers should be offered for the dead," and afterward he adds, "But all, I confess, were dragged into error." We need not then seek out the names and localities of the ancient fathers to prove Purgatory, since in reckoning their value Calvin puts them at zero. What likelihood that one single Calvin should be infallible and that all antiquity should have gone wrong!

[Calvin asserts that Augustine doubted purgatory, but in truth, Augustine] seems to doubt about the fire of Purgatory, but to doubt the nature of the fire of Purgatory is not to doubt Purgatory. He puts not then Purgatory in question, but the quality of it, as will never be denied by those who will look at how he speaks of it in chapters 16 and 24 of the same book of the de Civitate and in the work De Cura Pro Mortins Agenda, and 1000 other places. See then how we are in the track of the holy and ancient fathers, as to this article of Purgatory.

	11:49 PM (11 hours ago)

P.S. I should note that De Sales first made it clear that everything, especially one's purgation process, is accomplished through the blood of Jesus and not through any human act.

from here:  http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2012/06/did-trent-teach-that-christs-merits-are-not-sufficient-for-salvation/  comment 8



In particular, it was helpful to learn that, according to Catholic theology, sin has a “double consequence.” One consequence of sin is called the “eternal punishment” due to sin. Since sin involves a turning away from God and an inordinate turning toward created goods, in the act of sin we separate ourselves from the Lord and, being finite and undeserving, we can’t work ourselves back into favor with God, or overcome the chasm our sin has introduced. So, if it is helpful, you can think of this “eternal punishment” of sin as corresponding to the “legal debt” we owe to God; and, as St Anselm insisted in Cur Deus Homo, only a person who is both God and Man could make a satisfaction acceptable to divine justice. It follows that we ourselves cannot “make satisfaction” or “do enough penance” to overcome the eternal punishment of sin: we’re Hell-bound, and there’s nothing we ourselves can do about it; only Jesus can fix that problem.
But there is another consequence of sin (or another aspect of the “double consequence”), and this is called the “temporal punishment” of sin. This is not so much a legal penalty attaching to sin, which God imposes from “outside of us,” and for which we need to “make satisfaction,” in the sense of paying God back or paying off our debts. Rather, it is the consequence, or impact, or effect, that sinning itself has upon me as an individual. (Note, sometimes temporal punishments will involve such “paybacks,” as when, for example, I have stolen something belonging to you, and justice demands not only that I give it back, but that I do something more to make restitution or say I’m sorry. That’s okay: we’re still in the sphere of temporal punishments of sin here, since my making restitution to you does not obviate the need for the satisfaction for eternal punishment, which only Christ can provide.)
Here is an analogy: suppose I play the prodigal, running away from home, and I get myself addicted to meth or to smack or something. Then imagine I have a moment of clarity and come back to my parents’ home, begging forgiveness, and that they truly forgive me, no strings attached. Great; that means (in our analogy) that the “eternal punishment” for sin is now taken care of: I truly am forgiven, full stop. But — and here’s the rub — I still have an addiction to deal with. I have still harmed by body and soul by my behavior, and now I need to go through a course of rehabilitation in order to fight against that addiction, to quell and subdue it, to recover my psychological and physical health. Being forgiven by my parents is wonderful and needful, but it does not automatically “undo” all of the natural consequences that come about through my sinful behavior. It is not as though my parents are, externally, inflicting these punishments on me, so that I’ll learn my lesson. It isn’t as though I’m currying forgiveness from them by suffering through these urges and withdrawal symptoms, because I’ve brought these upon myself through my own behavior. Suffering through these consequences is fully consistent with having been completely absolved, forgiven, for the sins that brought them on. And what Catholic theology says is that these consequences are real, and that the antidote or fix for them is to engage in “acts of penance,” making “satisfaction” for those sins, with the aim of growing in our personal sanctification.
Here are some passages from the Catechism for comparison:
#1472:

To understand this doctrine and practice of the Church [purgatory], it is necessary to understand that sin has a double consequence. Grave sin deprives us of communion with God and therefore makes us incapable of eternal life, the privation of which is called the “eternal punishment” of sin. On the other hand every sin, even venial, entails an unhealthy attachment to creatures, which must be purified either here on earth, or after death in the state called Purgatory. This purification frees one from what is called the “temporal punishment” of sin.

Importantly, the notion that the “temporal punishment” or second consequence of sin is some sort of “backward looking” retribution God extracts from individuals in view of their “past failures” is explicitly repudiated, since the punishment in question “must not be conceived of as a kind of vengeance inflicted by God from without, but as following from the very nature of sin” (#1472). And it follows from the nature of sin because sin doesn’t only harm the person against whom it is perpetrated or amass a whole ton of debt before God or whatever, it “also injures and weakens the sinner himself, as well as his relationships with God and neighbor” (#1459), because it “creates a proclivity to sin; it engenders vice by repetition of the same acts [and] results in perverse inclinations which cloud conscience and corrupt the concrete judgment of good and evil,” which in turn explains why “sin tends to reproduce itself and reinforce itself” (#1865).
Thus although “Absolution takes away sin” – i.e. although it removes the “eternal punishment” and secures our forgiveness – receiving this forgiveness “does not remedy all the disorders sin has caused” – i.e. it doesn’t automatically eliminate the strength of the urge to sin in those particular ways, nor does it necessarily remove all the consequences that naturally follow from sinning. Consequently, once he has been “Raised up from sin [i.e. forgiven], the sinner must still recover his full spiritual health by doing something more to make amends for the sin: he must ‘make satisfaction for’ or ‘expiate’ his sins,” an activity which “is also called ‘penance’” (#1459).
So, although the terms sound foreign and suspicious to Reformed ears, things like “satisfaction” and “expiation” and “suffering” and “penance” and the like do not refer to the poor soul’s attempt to appease the fury of God by offering itself up as an object of divine vengeance; these activities are aimed precisely at the “forward looking” goal of the transformation of the “old man” into the “new man,” according to Catholic teaching:
#1473

The forgiveness of sin and restoration of communion with God entail the remission of the eternal punishment of sin, but temporal punishment of sin remains. While patiently bearing sufferings and trials of all kinds and, when the day comes, serenely facing death, the Christian must strive to accept this temporal punishment of sin as a grace. He should strive by works of mercy and charity, as well as by prayer and the various practices of penance, to put off completely the “old man” and to put on the “new man.”

And this is why, finally, the kind of “conversion which proceeds from a fervent charity can attain the complete purification of the sinner in such a way that no punishment would remain,” since such a comprehensive and profound perfection of the entire life’s effort toward conversio, or reorientation toward God and away from sin, signals the end “of the struggle … directed toward holiness and eternal life” whereby the Christian “seeks to purify himself of his sin and to become holy with the help of God’s grace” (#1426, #1474). I.e. “temporal punishment” and “penance/expiation” and the like are, in this context, directed at what Protestants call “progressive sanctification.”
I hope that these remarks were helpful, and that I haven’t been too longwinded. As I said, I was bothered by precisely the same concerns when I was on the road toward the Catholic Church; but I must admit that when I made a serious study of them, not only were my concerns addressed, but I discovered a theological and psychological depth and richness to Catholic teaching on these matters which I had been entirely unaware of before

from 657 http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2013/03/jason-stellman-tells-his-conversion-story/#comment-64490

 As for venial guilt, purgatory purges from us the attachments we have (in the will) to venial sin. As for merit in purgatory, this isn’t merit properly speaking, because the decisive choice of the will is already fixed definitively at the moment of death, but only merit per accidens, namely, that by remaining in the state of the way (though not yet seeing) man receives the ‘reward’ of purification, both from temporal punishment and venial guilt.