Yesterday we celebrated the feast of All Saints - in which we rejoiced with the Church Triumphant! Those men and women of every age who sought to do his will, who did his will as best they possibly could and who did it as closely as they could because they simply loved God.
Today we also remember those who have died - but who are not yet enjoying the fullness of the blessedness of God - those who, when they passed, were not totally ready to meet him - those who needed a further purifying process to remove what baggage their sins in this life still weighed them down with.
Out of justice, even after forgiveness occurs, there still is a need to “make up” in some way for wrongs done - some kind of “restitution” needs to be made - not out of revenge by the one who was sinned against - but simply because it makes sense for the one who did the offending in the first place!
The symbolic “location” of this purification process is called “purgatory.” It is not so much a “place” as it is an “intensity of feeling-oneself-being -purified.” In a sense, it is a spiritually painful process - the stripping away of all that is not holy; but the reward is great: the experience of a intense degree of holiness, to which we are all called - but to which that particular person never thought he/she would experience.
The passage to heaven - life with the already purified and beatified - happens almost instantaneously, then, after the purgation process, as there is no longer any need for further cleansing.
Those in the purgative process can be helped by the prayer of the Church - just as the saints can pray for us, and effect change - if we cooperate with the graces obtained by them for us. We can pray that the process of purgation be speedy, yet very thorough, so that the person gets an excellent reward for what he/she is experiencing! We can pray that the process release as many as possible into the blessedness of heaven this very day!
A key element in the purgation process is the humility of the person who is experiencing it. Only the childlike and the truly humble are allowed in heaven. This process then is to return those in it to a state of childlikeness and real humility. If a person truly sees himself as a child of God, who is totally dependent on him for absolutely everything - then he is ready for heaven!
If we, today, consciously spend time praying to become more childlike, and truly humble - and let ourselves be changed in ways that will make that a reality - then we are already participating in our own purgation process - and when we die - our experience will be that much “shorter,” “less intense” - if we need to experience it at all!
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