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Self-mastery is a long and exacting work. One can never consider it acquired once and for all. It presupposes renewed effort at all stages of life.

Catechism of the Catholic Church, Paragraph 2342

No fancy title for this one. I intended to write this post last week, as it was one of the weekends bordering All Saint’s Day, but the timing unfortunately didn’t pan out. But, I’d rather not drop the idea ’til next year, so here we are.

I am, obviously, Catholic. Having spent most of my life in places that aren’t predominantly so (and all of my life around people who don’t understand a lot of it, even if they themselves are also claiming the faith), I’ve had to spend a lot of time over the years learning about the faith in order to properly understand the arguments being made against it. While there are a lot of those around all sorts of topics, they tend to bunch around a few major ones. Papal succession, the number of books in the Bible, Purgatory, the nature of saints and sainthood, and Mary. Lots and lots of stuff about Mary. Maybe, over time, I’ll do something on all of that, but given the what the timing of this was supposed to be, I thought I’d start with Purgatory.

Purgatory is, in the briefest sense, a time for cleansing the soul to prepare it for being in the presence of God. There’s an interesting assortment of faiths that believe in something akin to it, and some pretty striking divisions within Christianity as to its existence or even merit. Within Christianity, the main contention comes from the Protestant tenants of “prima scriptura” and “sola scriptura” – the idea that the Bible provides the primary, or only, source of divine revelation, respectively. These contrast with the Catholic view that “sacred tradition” holds the same weight as the Bible – namely, we must read and interpret scripture in light of the teachings and traditions passed down from those who experienced Christ’s life and ministry first hand and, ultimately, were used by God to form the Bible in the first place.

Now that I’ve covered the basics there I’m realizing that could be an article all on its own, too. So many core tenants to cover!

Anyway, the combination of Protestant Bibles using a different canon which exclude certain books that do contain references to post-death purification and prayers for the dead, as well as their adherence to said prima/sola scriptura, leads to this break in belief. Why, they would tend to argue, would such a period of purification be needed if it’s not mentioned in the Bible, when, instead, we have numerous examples of faith being what is required for entrance into Heaven?

This is where I could get into a faith alone versus faith and works argument – one more to add to the list, they really just do keep coming, huh? – but I’m not sure that’s keeping to the point here. I’m here to talk Purgatory, and what is that if not also a discussion on Heaven itself?

I don’t know about you, but as a child I had a child’s notion of Heaven. It’s a place I’d get to just do what I want forever. All fun and games in the presence of God, cool deal, I want to do fun stuff. I think we, as a people, like to hold on to this concept for as long as we can, but if Scripture has anything to say about Heaven it’s quite divorced from the average person’s concept of joy.

That isn’t said lightly, either. We’re supposed to long for Heaven, to orient our entire lives to achieve it. But, what are we taught about it? We must hate our family to achieve it. We must hate our own lives. We will not be married in Heaven, but like the angels, focused solely on the love and rapture of God Himself. No family but the universal family of God. Ask yourself, truly, are you in any way close to that mindset? If you were to stand before God at this exact moment, could you honestly say you’re ready to forsake any and all Earthly relationship you have and devote yourself fully to worship and worship alone? That you’d be fine having no attachment to your spouse? Your children? Friends, family? Hell, even the mundane things like reading, or watching TV, or playing games? I know I’m not there, and I don’t think it’s possible for nearly anyone to be there while we live on this planet.

Full disclosure here, what I’ve come to accept Heaven as being is actually frightening to me. It promises a joy so alien to what this world is all about that it’s practically unrelatable. But, I accept it. I have the faith in it, and in God, to believe that is what our souls are oriented toward. What I know, in the end, is that I cannot get there on my own. I cannot attain that level of devotion, that purge of my worldly attachments. For me, and I expect for most, that is simply impossible. And it’s not like we’ll just instantly attain that when we die. Our souls don’t pop out fully uncorrupted by the world, as though those attachments are linked solely to the body. And that, of course is where Purgatory comes in.

Now, I don’t claim to know anything about what it entails. There are, of course, all sorts of notions of what it could be, and testimonials of people visited by those enduring it. Take of those what you will. I expect it’s a bit different for all of us. Each of us has our own hang-ups. Our own worldly attachments that need purging, our own sins that need purifying. The life we’ve built, the alterations to the path we’ve all taken, will require individual correction. But, in the end, what it is is irrelevant. Only that it is. To enter Heaven, to be in the presence of God, overwhelmed by Him, we must want to be there. We must want to be in that state, all of the world burned away from us.

Christ Himself stated that to attain Heaven is beyond man. It must be through Him, casting off the world. Both Scripture and Tradition bear that out. Seems to me like this shouldn’t be a point of contention between our faiths.