Purgatory?

[gtsecc]

What do you believe about Purgatory?
Does this teaching come up much in teachings or sermons at your parish?

 

[Spence06]

Well, I believe there is a state of purification that after death, we become completely perfect and the habit of sin is removed. A simple question comes to mind when I think about purgatory....We sin on Earth...but we don't sin in heaven nor is sinning even an opition. Why? All in heaven is perfect, but we are not perfect here, not by far. So in the Catholic belief of the importance of heaven and its glory, we feel that there must be a state where our souls become perfect and able to enjoy the full glory of heaven.

The teaching doesn't come up a lot really in my experience niether in our sermons.

That is the most basic explanation of what I could give. For official Teaching;

III. THE FINAL PURIFICATION, OR PURGATORY

1030 All who die in God's grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven.

1031 The Church gives the name Purgatory to this final purification of the elect, which is entirely different from the punishment of the damned.606 The Church formulated her doctrine of faith on Purgatory especially at the Councils of Florence and Trent. The tradition of the Church, by reference to certain texts of Scripture, speaks of a cleansing fire:607

As for certain lesser faults, we must believe that, before the Final Judgment, there is a purifying fire. He who is truth says that whoever utters blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will be pardoned neither in this age nor in the age to come. From this sentence we understand that certain offenses can be forgiven in this age, but certain others in the age to come.608


1032 This teaching is also based on the practice of prayer for the dead, already mentioned in Sacred Scripture: "Therefore [Judas Maccabeus] made atonement for the dead, that they might be delivered from their sin."609 From the beginning the Church has honored the memory of the dead and offered prayers in suffrage for them, above all the Eucharistic sacrifice, so that, thus purified, they may attain the beatific vision of God.610 The Church also commends almsgiving, indulgences, and works of penance undertaken on behalf of the dead:

Let us help and commemorate them. If Job's sons were purified by their father's sacrifice, why would we doubt that our offerings for the dead bring them some consolation? Let us not hesitate to help those who have died and to offer our prayers for them.611

Source: http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p123a12.htm

 

[frettr00]

Very rarely, I can vaguely recall it being spoken about at mass.

 

[Benedicta00]

What do you believe about Purgatory?
Does this teaching come up much in teachings or sermons at your parish?

All the time it does and all I can say is thank God for it.

Purgatory is for the souls who did not accept their chances at growing in the love of God. On earth with every cross we endure we can be transformed by grace if we allow ourselves too. This is how we grow in loving God as he commanded us too, surrendering our will to him, accepting everything as a grace from Him. After redemption, after we have been born again our goal then is to love God perfectly with ALL our heart, mind, strength, and will. Once we miss the chance to grow in the love of God here we can not grow in love in purgatory but have the love we do have perfected. This determines the amount of glory we will have in heaven- by how much love we have. We can not enter heaven until that love has been perfected.

This is what purgatory is for; it isn’t for the forgiveness of sins as it is for the perfection of our souls making us fit to enter heaven.