Purgatory and Praying for All the Faithful Departed

“I’ve always had a hard time explaining purgatory,” the man said. “Didn’t the Second Vatican Council say that Catholics no longer have to believe in purgatory?”

That remark was made to me years ago, not long after I had entered the Catholic Church. Although I was saddened to hear it, it didn’t surprise me. In the course of studying various Catholic doctrines, I had learned that certain beliefs, including purgatory, were often avoided or even ignored by some Catholics. And this, unfortunately, meant that many Catholics don’t appreciate the Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed, which is all about praying for those who are in purgatory.

“I think purgatory is rather simple to understand,” I responded. “The problem is that we often have to do away with our flawed notions of purgatory.”

Growing up in a Fundamentalist home, I had been told purgatory was the belief that everyone gets a “second chance” after death. Purgatory, I had also been taught, was just another Catholic invention without any basis in Scripture.

What I learned years later was quite different. I saw that the early Christians prayed for the dead, and that this practice was based, in part, on the actions of those Jews who had prayed for the dead (cf., 2 Macc. 12:41-46). As today’s reading from the Book of Wisdom indicates, the idea of spiritual cleansing was a common one in the Old Testament: “For if before men, indeed, they be punished, yet is their hope full of immortality; chastised a little, they shall be greatly blessed, because God tried them and found them worthy of himself. As gold in the furnace, he proved them, and as sacrificial offerings he took them to himself.”

It followed logically that if there was life after death for the just, those who were just would be cleansed fully and completely, if necessary, before entering the presence of God. This, of course, also flowed from the deepened understanding of death and resurrection given through the life, death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. The Savior had promised, in today’s Gospel, “that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him may have eternal life, and I shall raise him on the last day.”

But the early Christians recognized that not every disciple of Jesus is perfectly cleansed in this life from venial sins. St. Augustine explained that the Church’s prayers, the Mass, and the giving of alms provided spiritual aid to the dead. “The whole Church,” he wrote, “observes this practice which was handed down by the Fathers: that it prays for those who have died in the communion of the Body and Blood of Christ, when they are commemorated in their own place in the sacrifice itself; and the sacrifice is offered also in memory of them, on their behalf.”

It is ironic that the culture of death, which is present in so many ways, is so afraid to face death squarely and honestly. It tries to cheat and avoid death, both mocking it and cowering before it in movies, books, video games, and music. We fear death because it is so mysterious and hidden. We fear it because it seems so unjust that the vibrancy of life can end so suddenly and completely. If this world is all that exists, then death is to be feared. But it also will not be denied.

St. Paul, on the other hand, embraced death—that is, the death of Jesus Christ. “We were indeed buried with him through baptism into death,” he wrote to the Christians in Rome, “so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live in newness of life.”

All Souls not only provides us an opportunity to pray for those who have gone before us, but also reminds us of our mortal end. We cannot deny it. But by God’s grace we can and should prepare for it, trusting that the Lord our Shepherd will guide us through the valley of darkness.

Three hours after the thread was openws as a Catholic Caucus thread, and after numerous non-Catholics had posted on the thread, the Religion Mod changed the designation to non-Caucus.

The confusion was not caused by me. I, like numerous Catholic posters, prefer to post on Caucus threads of interest to me, particularly to stay away from controversy on Catholic topics. If you read the thread, a number of Catholic posters protested against the non-Cathlic posters, not me only. I feel no need to be courteous to those who jump on Caucus threads to argue about Catholic topics. This is commonly done, and is very rude. If you have a problem, take it to the mod. I can assure you, if a Catholic posted on a defferent caucus thread, the other csucus would protest even more loudly, as they have in the past.

Have a charming day.

if one accepts this, then works DO have a part to play, right? God accepts they works

Of course works DO play a part. The question really is WHO gives you those "good" works that are pleasing to God?

Jhn 6:28 Then they said to him, "What must we do, to be doing the works of God?"
Jhn 6:29 Jesus answered them, "This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent."

There is only ONE work that we need to do, believe. And we even have to pray for our belief. Our Lord Jesus is the vine. We are the branches. It is He that cause us to bear fruit.

God commands that we go and bear fruit. But God must bless us so that we will bear fruit. It's like Augustine's prayer, "Command what you will, and grant what you command." God told Adam and Eve's race to go forth, be fruitful and multiply. Yet we say children are a GIFT from God, which they are. It isn't because Adam and Eve's race ability to create children. It is because God creates the souls. God commands and yet God must grant what He's commanded.

This is an extremely important principle on the nature of God. I only wished that I thought it up. :O)

First you post this on a thread about praying for the dead person's living soul..

Ecc 9:5" For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing, and they have no more reward, for the memory of them is forgotten. "

That the dead know nothing and no reward( Is this not your original intent). Then I show you in scripture were people who have been dead for centuries shows they were in a middle state between here and heaven. Who obviously are going to Heaven by Christ. There are released in the Gospel. Then you go on with still not understanding the significance of what went on with this gospel

"And none of the people that were raised would I classify in the sense of "holy" as I take it you mean."

I quoted scripture only about Holy.The Holy you question is in the Gospel of Matthew. I did not put it there. The Holy Spirit did by Matthew.

Matthew 27:51 "At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook, the rocks split 52 and the tombs broke open. The bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. 53 They came out of the tombs after Jesus’ resurrection and[e] went into the holy city and appeared to many people."

Freeper Regards!!

Can you show me ANYWHERE in these verses where it states that these people were in purgatory? According to the verses it said they were "asleep"-another term often used for dead. But by your own admission these were "holy" people or saints of the church. Are you prepare to tell me the saints in the Catholic Church are now in purgatory?

Mat 27:51 And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. And the earth shook, and the rocks were split.

Mat 27:52 The tombs also were opened. And many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised,

Mat 27:53 and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many.

The idea of purgatory has been around for 600 years or so

No, even the word "purgatory" (well, the Latin equivalent purgatorio) is older than that. A papal document associated with a council, the Council of Lyon in the 13th century, basically said, "well, the Greeks say they don't believe in purgatory, but we do, so they should, too".

The concept goes back to the Jewish practice of prayer for the dead, which is reflected in 2 Maccabees, and has apparently been part of Jewish practice from that time to the present day. It appears to have been part of Christian practice from Apostolic times. Tertullian (around AD 200) discusses prayer for the dead at some length.

St. Augustine spoke of the dead who were saved, but still had some minor attachment to sin that prevented them from immediately entering heaven, as suffering poenae purgatoriae ("purgatorial punishments" or "punishments of purgation"). From there, it was an easy jump to the word purgatorio as the name for the state or place in which those punishments took place.

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