The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines the dogma of Purgatory as a state of final purification after death but before entrance into Heaven for those who have died in God's friendship, but were imperfectly purified.
While the dogma of purgatory is often misrepresented by our accusors as a medieval invention, it is a belief that goes back to the Earthly ministry of Jesus Christ, was promulgated by his apostles in the early days of the Catholic Church and is evident in the Jewish culture in which Christ was raised.
The existence of the concept as a dogmatic Christian teaching predates the writings of the New Testament scriptures. Like all Catholic teachings, however, the Tradition is referenced in the New Testament. In my opinion, the most obvious reference appears in Saint Paul's first letter to the Church in Corinth in which he explains that the works of every human being built up on the foundation of Jesus Christ will be tested by fire and that the same fire will purge that which does not pass the test. He uses the metaphor of "purgation." The process by which an object is purified by exposing it to fire. Think of a needle being disinfected by being held in a flame. This where the word "purgatory" comes from.
According to the grace of God given to me, like a wise master builder I laid a foundation, and another is building upon it. But each one must be careful how he builds upon it,
for no one can lay a foundation other than the one that is there, namely, Jesus Christ.
If anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, or straw,
the work of each will come to light, for the Day will disclose it. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire [itself] will test the quality of each one’s work.
If the work stands that someone built upon the foundation, that person will receive a wage.
But if someone’s work is burned up, that one will suffer loss; the person will be saved, but only as through fire.
1 Corinthians 3:10-15
One of the weaker arguments against the dogma of purgatory is to say that the word "purgatory" does not appear in the Bible. It's an odd tactic for a "Bible Alone" Christian to make considering that the word "Trinity" does not appear in the Bible either and the dogma of the Trinity is integral to the definition of a Christian, Catholic or otherwise. The reason this isn't really an issue, aside from the fact that the Catholic Church formally rejects the "Bible Alone" approach to theology, is that the word "Trinity" is just the word that the Church uses to refer to a complex idea that is present throughout scripture. Just as the word "purgatory" is just the word that the Church uses in reference to another complex idea that is alluded to in many places throughout the "Sacred Little Library" that is the Bible.
In the example above, Paul clearly explains a process by which the works of a person built on the foundation that is Jesus Christ, will be tested. He uses the illustration of purgation and states that if one's work is not burnt up, he will receive a wage. If his work is burnt up, he will suffer loss. Most importantly, notice that both parties in Saint Paul's example end up saved. They both built on the same foundation, Jesus Christ. But one is implied to have required more perfecting than the other.
That method of perfecting repentant souls is illustrated by the process of purgation. This is why we call the concept "purgatory."
The Tradition that preserves this dogma also tells us that we must pray for the souls of those undergoing this process of purgatory. Some of our accusers claim that this means that Catholics see purgatory as a second chance at salvation after death. This is not the case. No one enters purgatory who's salvation is not already decided. Purgatory is only for the saved. Those who have died in a state of grace, have confessed and have been absolved of their mortal sins, but still carry with them the damage of those sins, if you will, or even have died having failed to confess venial sins. Those sins which do not cause spiritual death, but call for temporal punishment in order to make the soul perfect. For nothing imperfect may enter Heaven.
The treasure and wealth of the nations will be brought there,
but nothing unclean will enter it, nor any who does abominable things or tells lies. Only those will enter whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.
Revelation 21:26-27
That temporal punishment creates perfection is a concept that permeates all of Catholic culture and the Bible. In A.D. 210 Tertullian framed the idea of the temporal punishment of purgatory in terms of the rehabilitative purpose of prison. Unfortunately, the concept of prison as rehabilitation is virtually lost on many members of modern society. Of course, Jesus did this before he did.
Settle with your opponent quickly while on the way to court with him. Otherwise your opponent will hand you over to the judge, and the judge will hand you over to the guard, and you will be thrown into prison.
Amen, I say to you, you will not be released until you have paid the last penny.
Mathew 5:25-26
If you are to go with your opponent before a magistrate, make an effort to settle the matter on the way; otherwise your opponent will turn you over to the judge, and the judge hand you over to the constable, and the constable throw you into prison.
I say to you, you will not be released until you have paid the last penny.”
Luke 12:58-59
In both passages above, Christ alludes to a prison from which a person might be let out if they pay the debt that is owed. This cannot be Hell as Hell is inescapable. The more important part of the statement Christ is making here is that you should make efforts to pay this debt before being thrown into this prison so that you might avoid your time there altogether.
Saint Paul, apostle and bishop, makes reference to this concept of temporal punishment as discipline in his epistle to the Hebrews.
In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood.
You have also forgotten the exhortation addressed to you as sons:
“My son, do not disdain the discipline of the Lord
or lose heart when reproved by him;
for whom the Lord loves, he disciplines;
he scourges every son he acknowledges.”
Endure your trials as “discipline”; God treats you as sons. For what “son” is there whom his father does not discipline?
If you are without discipline, in which all have shared, you are not sons but bastards.
Besides this, we have had our earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them. Should we not [then] submit all the more to the Father of spirits and live?
They disciplined us for a short time as seemed right to them, but he does so for our benefit, in order that we may share his holiness.
At the time, all discipline seems a cause not for joy but for pain, yet later it brings the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who are trained by it.
Hebrews 12:4-11
Paul is not talking about purgatory here, but he is clearly presenting the idea that God's discipline is not an act of vengeance or anger. It is an act of love. A purifying fire. The implication is not only that this purification occurs in purgatory, but that it can also be pursued through acts of penance and the offering of suffering during our mortal lives. Paul is referencing a Catholic teaching by which is made clear that the temporal punishment due to a repentant sinner in purgatory, that is, the discipline required to make him perfect, can be reduced through acts of discipline, in cooperation with the Grace of Christ, which he chooses to pursue on earth before he dies, thus reducing his "time" in purgatory. If one can be perfected to some extent here in mortal life by cooperating with God's grace, as Saint Paul suggests, then the need for the perfecting fire of purgatory becomes less necessary. This leads us to the doctrine concerning indulgences, which I will cover elsewhere.
In his letter to the Hebrews, Saint Paul gives this wondrous description of his audience's experience of the Holy Mass.
You have not approached that which could be touched and a blazing fire and gloomy darkness and storm
and a trumpet blast and a voice speaking words such that those who heard begged that no message be further addressed to them,
for they could not bear to hear the command: “If even an animal touches the mountain, it shall be stoned.”
Indeed, so fearful was the spectacle that Moses said, “I am terrified and trembling.”
No, you have approached Mount Zion and the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and countless angels in festal gathering,
and the assembly of the firstborn enrolled in heaven, and God the judge of all, and the spirits of the just made perfect,
and Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and the sprinkled blood that speaks more eloquently than that of Abel.
Hebrews 12:18-24
If you are wondering why I call this a description of the Holy Catholic Mass, that is not surprising. When read outside the context of Sacred Tradition, one sees a description only of the Heavenly liturgy contrasted with the master/servant relationship between God and Man in the old covenant. But Paul is describing something that the recipients of his letter have actually attended and experienced. How is it possible for them to have experienced the Heavenly Liturgy? The answer is that Catholic Tradition asserts that the Mass is a literal participation in the Heavenly liturgy. Not a symbolic ritual that represents the Heavenly Liturgy, but literally a temporal partaking in the literal eternal worship of Heaven.
And who are among those that the Hebrews have come to in the Heavenly Jerusalem? The spirits of just men made perfect. The applicable idea here being that to be a just man is not enough to enter Heaven. You must still be made perfect.
We are urged to doggedly pursue this perfection here and now. The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. It is now. We are called to build toward this perfection every day on the foundation of Jesus Christ, even if it seems impossible, even if what we build seems to be knocked back down every day. We are called to be Saints on Earth through spiritual discipline. It may not be achieved by everyone. For those of us who fail, we may still yet be saved, "but only as through fire." And, as Saint Paul reminds us, we ought to understand that this fire is an act of God's loving discipline, enacted out of His desire for our perfection.
Catholics are also called to pray for the souls of those who have died. Our accusers often see this as a waste of time and a misunderstanding of God's law since judgement occurs at death and no amount of prayer could save them if they are damned. I'll put aside the argument that God is God and can do whatever he wants, including the granting of a request in prayer even if it seems impossibly bound by the limitations of space and time. Instead, let me clarify that when you see us praying for a person who has died, we are primarily praying for that person's hasty passage through purgatory, assuming that they died in a state of grace and are bound for Heaven.
This practice has been a dogmatic teaching of the Catholic Church for 2,000 years and actually precedes Christ. In the Bible, we first see this practice mentioned under the old covenant.
On the following day, since the task had now become urgent, Judas and his companions went to gather up the bodies of the fallen and bury them with their kindred in their ancestral tombs.
But under the tunic of each of the dead they found amulets sacred to the idols of Jamnia, which the law forbids the Jews to wear. So it was clear to all that this was why these men had fallen.
They all therefore praised the ways of the Lord, the just judge who brings to light the things that are hidden.
Turning to supplication, they prayed that the sinful deed might be fully blotted out. The noble Judas exhorted the people to keep themselves free from sin, for they had seen with their own eyes what had happened because of the sin of those who had fallen.
He then took up a collection among all his soldiers, amounting to two thousand silver drachmas, which he sent to Jerusalem to provide for an expiatory sacrifice. In doing this he acted in a very excellent and noble way, inasmuch as he had the resurrection in mind;
for if he were not expecting the fallen to rise again, it would have been superfluous and foolish to pray for the dead.
But if he did this with a view to the splendid reward that awaits those who had gone to rest in godliness, it was a holy and pious thought.
Thus he made atonement for the dead that they might be absolved from their sin.
2 Macabees 39-46
There are some among our accusers who who would say that 1 and 2 Macabees are not part of the canon of Sacred Scripture. I won't waste time here with the long story of how, starting only 500 years ago, 7 books were eventually removed from the Protestant Bible. I may cover this subject elsewhere in the future.
In any case, the events described in the passage above did not occur long before the Earthly ministry of Jesus, as the age of the world goes, and the concept is something Jesus was familiar with.
And whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven; but whoever speaks against the holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.
Mathew 12:32
Here Jesus implies that some sins can be forgiven in the next life. Catholics call these venial sins. 2 Maccabees corroborates that his audience already knew and believed this. It is also corroborated by a 2,000 year Catholic Tradition on the subject that was not challenged for the first 1,500 years of Christianity on Earth.
The souls in purgatory have also been known historically as "The Church Suffering." Catholic doctrine does not perceive the same boundaries between those believers who have died in Christ and those who are still with us in this mortal life. Rather, we see all these people as members of the one Church. Those in Heaven who have died in Christ and are with God interceding on our behalf through their efficacious prayers are called "The Church Triumphant." For their trials are over and they await only the glorious resurrection. We who are still living out our mortal lives are called "The Church Militant." God calls us to pray for our brothers and sisters in purgatory so that they might pass speedily into Heaven and there pray for the Church Militant. An economy of prayer. The Church: Triumphant, Militant and Suffering.
One Church. Forever.
For those who die in Christ are not dead. God is the God of the living. Not of the dead.
