+ Pope Benedict XVI tells us: “I
would go so far as to say that if there was no purgatory, then, we would have
to invent it, for who would dare say of himself that he was able to stand
directly before God. [and I add: “as is” at time of death!]
And yet we don’t want to be,
to use an image from Scripture, ‘a pot that turned out wrong,’ that has to be
thrown away; we want to be able to be “put right.” [or as I could say: “pot
right”!]
Purgatory basically means that God can put
the pieces back together again. That he can cleanse us in such
a way that we are able to be with him and can stand there in the fullness of
life.
Purgatory strips off from one
person what is unbearable and from another the inability to bear certain
things, so that in each of them a pure heart is revealed, and we can see that
we all belong together in one enormous symphony of being.”
I, to complement this message
from Pope Benedict, have this to add: purgatory is an instantaneous process of
becoming fully configured to the Christ of our Baptism, our Confirmation, our
Eucharist – so that the deceased enters now fully into the communion of saints
in heaven because he is so configured to Christ that the Father sees both
Christ and the Person – this is what purgatory is the completion of a
transformative process that actually is meant to take place our entire lives.
If we cooperate in our
transformation through suffering in our lifetime – then our purgatorial process
will be brief, if necessary at all.
Another point is that those in
the purgatorial state – they cannot pray for themselves any longer – but we can
pray for the completion of the process in them – and it counts very much.
How many souls will be
released into heaven from purgatory by this very mass? It’s up to us, and our
intention to free them! So let’s “free away!”
“Come,
blest of my Father, enter into the joys of the Kingdom prepared for you!”
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