Purgatory

I think the church I was raised in had a unique view of heaven. Because we believed there would only be one "Last Judgment," we believed that souls do not go directly to Heaven or Hell upon death. Instead, depending on their goodness on earth, they went to a kind of holding cell - something bland and confining like a prison or something very much like heaven but not the real thing. As a teenager, if my Catholic friends brought up Purgatory, this is what I imagined. I imagined Purgatory and the prison holding area to be the same. I imagined it like an expanse of brown, dried grass, sitting under a brownish green sky...there was nothing to do, but no pain really.

My friend explained Purgatory to me as I took a walk one summer afternoon, well before I had ever started to consider Catholicism. "It's simply a place you go where you can draw closer to God without temptation." While this is not the whole story, I will pause to explain the effect that statement had on me. I was an instant believer. I have always felt a little anxiety over going to heaven, because there is no sin in heaven. Perhaps because I am a little bratty, or perhaps because of original sin, or both, I could not imagine me - Sarah, my soul - without the inclination to sin. What if all the other souls in heaven got on my nerves? The idea that I could go to Purgatory and learn not to sin before standing in front of God for eternity gave me a sense of relief.

Now, based on my friend's explanation, I pictured Purgatory as a valley of rolling hills. You couldn't call it anything close to heaven, nor to the best places on this earth, but it was not unpleasant. On the top of each hill was a tree - perhaps an apple tree in bloom or covered in apples - and beneath each tree a soul sat. Here we souls contemplate God without ever feeling hot, cold, hungry, fat, tired, thirsty, or jealous. And the longer we sat, the longer we learned to want God - even though our circumstance was not so bad. Eventually, our longing would be so great that we would be ready for heaven, and to heaven we would go.

The other thing my friend told me about Purgatory was that it was a safe place. "If I die and find myself in Purgatory I will be the happiest person ever, because I know I will get to heaven, it's just a matter of when." Perhaps because of misunderstanding and grace abuse, some Catholics have given a very different view of Purgatory. In their minds, they can behave however they want in this world, and then in Purgatory they will make up for it. We cannot judge where they go when they finally leave this world, but if they are living wholly unchristian lives, then they may go to the alternative to Purgatory and Heaven.

A few months later, my friend sent me a booklet on Purgatory, presumably because of my interest in it. I was shocked to read it! Purgatory was not a happy valley - it was a pit of fire! Pain - horrific pain - worse pain than anyone on earth has ever experienced - awaits us there. And we get to stay there until we are ready for heaven? What is going on? For one, the idea of painful fire is not so far different than my idea of learning to love God and learning not to be sinful. Doesn't fire purify? If we are scalded, won't that burn off the old, dirty self? Aren't we supposed to be baptized in fire? Although the pain of Purgatory now sounds dreadful, I imagine it could be like the good kind of pain. Pain that heals.

Because our sins have been forgiven, we no longer have to fear death. If we have been saved, then we will go to Purgatory. However, because we are sinful, we must also be cleansed of and punished for the sins we have committed. This is similar to a thief who steals a TV. If he is caught and the TV replaced, he still has to go to jail. If he repents of his crime and turns himself in, he still has to pay for the TV. Even if the TV owners forgive him, he still has to serve his time.