January 2005

Where Did Purgatory Go?

Many of us are old enough to remember being taught about Purgatory and the "Poor Souls" while others of us are too young to have been educated about this Church teaching. It seems that after Vatican II, many of our traditional Catholic teachings and our catechism changed in the late 1960's, even though Vatican II did not specifically denounce any of our traditional dogmas. The "out with the old and in with the new" attitude flowed over into our religious educational system affecting the way our Catholic faith was taught to young Catholics and converts to the faith.

Many of our long-held beliefs were abandoned in the Catholic classrooms for more "modern" ideas about our faith. One subject that became excluded from our curricula was the teaching of Purgatory and the importance of praying for the souls of the deceased. It is not only a shame that this dogma is not being taught, but it is negatively significant as it directly affects the suffering of souls who must endure Purgatory before being admitted into heaven.

Not too long ago, my own father made a rather disconcerting comment to me about the faith of his three children who were baptized and raised Catholic from birth. You see, I have one brother and one sister, neither of which practice their Catholic faith anymore. My brother has even decided that he is more fundamentalist Christian than Roman Catholic. Of course, my father is thankful that I and my children and grandchildren still embrace the faith, because he said, "I'm glad that someone in my family is still Catholic. I've been concerned that if all my kids leave the Church, there will be no one left to pray for my soul after I die." Well, that simple statement shocked me so badly that I didn't know what to say back to him except that I promised that I would, and I would encourage my children to do so, too.

Now, if my own father--who is now 74 and a convert in 1955--is concerned, maybe I should really be concerned! Obviously, he was taught in his Catholic instruction about Purgatory, and I was as well, but in my early grade school years in the 1960's. My husband converted to Catholicism in 1986, and the subject of Purgatory was slightly mentioned in his RCIA classes. He doesn't really understand it much, and since it wasn't emphasized in RCIA, he doesn't seem to comprehend the importance of praying for his deceased loved ones. It was barely mentioned, so it just doesn't have any particular significance to him. I can't imagine that he's the only person out there who has had this lack of Catholic education!

Both of my daughters went to Catholic grade school, and they didn't get much information about this subject either in their religion classes. So, what is happening to our teachers? Why are they choosing only part of our doctrine to explain and emphasize? And more importantly, why is Purgatory the most common subject to avoid?

Why isn't Purgatory a more popular subject? It certainly is for those souls who reside there after they leave this world! Maybe you are not aware of this, but there are several mystics and seers alive now, especially in parts of Europe, that regularly see apparitions of some of the "poor souls" who request prayers and Masses to relieve their sufferings. One of the most famous is an Austrian woman named Maria Simma. She's been seeing thousands of souls in Purgatory for decades now, and a couple of books have been written about her experiences. Much of the information in this article comes from some of her interviews and books.

Maria is very concerned about the lack of prayers coming from Catholics regarding the poor souls. Many of these suffering souls tell her that they are truly saddened by the lack of prayers they receive for themselves by their loved ones who are still on earth. They are the truly forgotten ones--the suffering souls! Just remembering them fondly or cherishing memories of our deceased family members and friends is not enough to help them gain entrance to heaven any faster. We must pray, pray, pray for them, too! We also cannot just assume that they all went straight to heaven when they died, regardless of the amount of suffering they may have endured that we know about, or even because we are uncomfortable with the thought that our loved ones could have possibly gone anywhere else. If we truly love them, we must pray for them!

One of their most common requests is for Masses to be said for them, or even attended and offered up for them by their loved ones. This is an easy thing to do. Any Mass that you attend can be offered up for specific deceased souls, or just for the poor souls in Purgatory in general.

Sometimes the soul requests that Maria do some extra suffering for them that is offered back to God to relieve them of suffering. You see, once a person dies, you become unable to help yourself any longer by good works, prayers, or suffering. A soul in Purgatory can only attain heaven in one of two ways: prayers, Masses, offerings of our own pains, and extra good deeds must be offered by those still living to God for the specific purpose of granting the graces to the poor soul; OR the soul must remain in Purgatory for the duration of their time, suffering sometimes excruciating pains without the prayers or offerings of anyone on earth. Souls in Purgatory are helpless to help themselves out of there. Only the living can help them.

Maybe this doesn't sound like a big deal, but I guarantee that we will feel differently if we end up there ourselves! Maria says that any person on earth who prays for the poor souls or makes offerings to God to relieve their sufferings is not forgotten by the souls. They are so very grateful to us for helping them that they will help us here while we are on earth. Souls in heaven and souls in purgatory can pray for us and help us. Any soul we pray for becomes our friend for eternity!

It is also important to realize that our pre-judging of any person who dies is against God's law. HE is the ultimate, and therefore only, true judge of a person's reward or punishment. God knows everything we have ever done, failed to do, done with impure intent or malice, and excuse we come up with for our actions and failings. Maria has seen children as young as 4 years old in Purgatory. She's seen a soul who has been there since 555 AD. Even souls that we would assume surely went to hell have appeared to her from Purgatory! There are no guarantees in this life, and we must live our lives with that in mind as well as what happens to us all after death.

The doctrine of Purgatory's existence is Biblical and been taught to Christians and Catholics for centuries. Please see these references to substantiate this:

Mt 5:48; -- be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect
Heb 12:14; -- strive for that holiness without which we cannot see God
Jam 3:2; -- we all fall short in many respects
Rev 21:27; -- nothing unclean shall enter heaven
1 Jn 5:16-17; -- degrees of sins are distinguished
Jm 1:14-15; -- when sin reaches maturity, it gives birth to death
2 Sam 12:13-14; -- David, though forgiven, was still punished for his sins
Mt 5:26; -- you will not be released until you've paid the last penny
Mt 12:32; -- sin against the Holy Spirit is unforgiven in this life and the next
Mt 12:36; -- account for every idle word on judgment day
2 Macc 12:44-46; -- atoned for dead to free them from sin
1 Cor 3:15; -- suffer loss, but saved as through fire
1 Pet 3:18-20; -- Jesus preached to the spirits in prison
2 Tim 1:16-18; -- Paul prays for his dead friend, Onesiphorus
1 Cor 15:29-30; -- Paul mentions people baptizing for the dead

Maria also states that there are three very distinct basic levels of Purgatory. The upper level is the most light suffering for the soul, the middle is more difficult suffering, and the lowest is the most intense suffering. In this lowest level, Satan is still allowed to antagonize and torture the poor souls there. The upper two levels do not allow for this to happen. She also notes that a soul does not necessarily have to progress up the levels to attain entrance to heaven. Sometimes souls will go directly from the lowest level in Purgatory straight to heaven, bypassing the middle and upper levels there. Some souls have told her that they will have to remain in Purgatory, suffering until the end of time. Prayers for these souls usually do not get them out completely, but will relieve the intensity of their sufferings.

One reason I have chosen this particular subject as this month's Hot Topic, is that I want to revive this old, traditional teaching of the Church. We must not live this life forgetting what may lay before us when we die. Our earthly life is our only chance we have to help ourselves, and after that we become helpless and reliant--if we go to Purgatory--on others living to help us gain heaven. Choosing to not believe in Purgatory, for whatever reason, does not change the fact that it does truly exist. Not believing in it will not leave us with only the two options of hell or heaven. One cannot assume that if you don't believe in Purgatory and you don't think you are bad enough to go to hell that one gets a free ride to heaven!

Atonement for sin, weakness, transgressions, and omissions is a reality that many people forget about. Even the religions of the East believe in karma: what goes around, comes around. Today, more than ever before in history, there are more religions out there to choose from. Especially in the United States, there are new churches springing up on every corner. Each "pastor" seems to create his own theology, whether Bible based or not. It is because of the surgence of fundamentalist Christianity in this country that a lot of our doctrine is getting forgotten. It's not being taught, so we don't know it's origins, and thus we can't explain it to fundamentalists when they question us. So, we Catholics can begin to doubt it ourselves, and many of us end up believing more like the fundamentalists do that there is only heaven and only hell--just two choices after death. And unfortunately, people are more and more believing that when a person goes straight to God asking His forgiveness, suddenly the sin is just erased and that's all there is to it. No atonement. Just sorrow for sin and asking forgiveness is necessary. This is not what Jesus taught us. We must make some positive action for the negative action we took. We must atone.

I've always been firmly committed to the truth that the God of Christianity--the ONLY God above--is omniscient and almighty. There is nothing in existence that He does not know about, and nothing that He can not do. He is limitless. Therefore, it is ludicrous to place restrictions on Him, determining that things can or cannot be true. God can make anything He chooses be true. And if we believe that our Bible was written with inspiration from the Holy Spirit, and is truly the Word of God, we must believe the ENTIRE Bible: all the verses, all the chapters, all the books. If part of His Word makes us uncomfortable or we just don't like it or don't agree with it, we can't leave it out and take the rest. King James did this very thing. A royal politician edited the Bible for his own reasons, and millions upon millions of people just accept it as the real and complete truth! This is then only partial truth. Neither can we choose to disregard the doctrine of Purgatory. It is Biblical in origin, and most of the references to it are in any version of the Bible. Maccabees was left out by King James, so much of the discussion on praying for the deceased got left out. But Maccabees is in the original, Catholic Bible, and therefore part of our Catholic doctrine.

If some part of our doctrine challenges our faith, pray about it. Don't just jump ahead and throw it away. No one can change God's truth. It's like one day deciding that the sun is really blue, and we decide to believe it. Now, it didn't change the color of the sun, did it, just because we chose to change our opinion of it? The sun remains the color it is. It keeps to the truth regardless of our opinions of it. And it is doubtful that God would change its color just to keep one or more of us happy or so that we could be right about it.

The same is true for Purgatory. It does exist. Souls do go there. Souls do suffer there, and some of those souls may be our loved ones we assumed went straight to heaven. It is right that we pray for them according to the Bible and our Catholic, Christian tradition. And some of these souls in Purgatory have been appearing to seers throughout history asking for help. If you believe in apparitions of any kind, then surely you would be open to these souls appearing as well.

If you are interested in learning more about Purgatory and the poor souls who go there, read some of the cited references below. They are good places to start, but don't just learn about it, begin a prayer and offering regimen to help these souls. There are several things that are easily done that can help; not everything offered has to be a major ordeal for us. The trick is to remember to do it, so I have a few suggestions for you.

1. Get a notebook and write down the names of everyone you can think of that you know who have died. Then add other people you haven't met, like some famous people or victims of disaster you hear about. A good example of people to add is the victims of the 9-11 terrorist attack or the victims of the Southeast Asian tsunami. Leave the notebook out so you can see it and it will remind you to say a quick prayer for them. Or mention the souls in your notebook silently at Mass during the prayer of the faithful or after communion, or even when the longer Consecration prayers are said. A lot of us have quite long lists of those we pray for because we can't possibly remember every one by name every single time we pray. This makes it easier for us to actually pray and include everyone while doing it.
2. When you read the news online or in a newspaper, say a quick prayer for those people in the news who have died, been murdered, or killed in battle. The nightly news on television is an excellent opportunity for prayer! While you sit there listening and watching the latest tragedy or crime being reported, add a Hail Mary or some other prayer for those souls. Write them in your notebook if you want to, but at least say a quick prayer for them.
3. Learn how to help yourself before you die and possibly end up in Purgatory. Read about indulgences and how they work. After Communion, pray the Anima Christi prayer, as this relieves our own sufferings if we should end up in Purgatory. There are lots of prayers that have indulgences attached to them. We can--while alive--help alleviate any of our future sufferings we must do for our own atonement for sin.
4. The Poor Souls in Purgatory can also help us here on earth, just like the saints in heaven may. Call upon them for their prayers and intercession, making them eternal friends of ours. Asking for their help and prayers will also remind us to reciprocate and pray for them. Remember the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. If you don't want your own trip to heaven to be delayed after you die, pray for the poor souls and ask them to pray for yours!
5. Get into the habit of daily prayer of any type. Morning or evening, or morning and evening! If you do this already, just add an extra prayer for the deceased. If you don't pray daily already, this is one of the best habits you can create for yourself. Prayer doesn't have to be long and a big production. The best part of prayer is that you can do it anywhere, any time: in the shower, stuck in traffic, before you fall asleep, while cooking dinner, etc.
6. Do what you have to do to remind yourself to pray. Put a holy card on your refrigerator door, a crucifix over a light switch, a note on your bathroom mirror, etc. Once you create your habit, you have begun to keep prayer in mind at different times when you are away from your little reminders. Then, when you get that headache, you can more easily remember to tell God that this is for the poor souls, or this is for old Uncle Joe who died last year, or this pain is for those souls written in my notebook.
7. People with chronic illness in particular have an excellent daily opportunity to offer their sufferings up to God so that they can make a difference somehow. It takes our pains and frustrations with our disabilities and turns them into positive experiences. Make your suffering count for something! Even if you offer it to God for the atonement of your own sins. But do something with it, as you know you are going to suffer anyway whether you take the opportunity to offer it as sacrifice to God or not. So, why not make the offering?

I want to leave you with a final thought: Purgatory is difficult to explain to non-Catholics mostly because we lack the education about its historical background and Biblical basis. Learning more about it will help it make better sense to us as Catholics, and also allow us to better explain or defend this doctrine of our faith. Please don't abandon it out of ignorance (and here I mean "under-education," not stupidity!) or just because it isn't popular and modern thought. The more you read about Purgatory, the more sense it will make, and the more devotion you will have toward helping all souls who have gone before us into the next life. Keep in mind that none of us have guarantees ourselves as to our fate that awaits us in the hereafter!

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				Get Us Out Of Here! Maria Simma speaks with Nicky Eltz

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01/09/2006