How not to go to purgatory: This is really cool (so to speak)

This is the gargantuan wall mural taking up a very large section of the Dominican community’s chapel at the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas (Angelicum) in Rome, where, besides other universities and institutes, I spent many years. This was a work which drew me into the chapel frequently. Yikes!

The best way not to go to purgatory is, of course, to go through on this earth the purgatory which would have otherwise awaited us after we die.

I mean, I certainly would not want to be in purgatory until even, say, the end of the world. I would rather go straight to heaven. But, you know, I know that if our Lord, in His goodness and kindness, saves me from the jaws of hell crushing me until I’m dragged even further into hell…. if our dear Lord saves me from that, I’m thinking that I would in fact be in purgatory until the end of the world. And, get this, I think that without hardly even having an inkling about just how evil I have sometimes been in my life. I can hardly begin to know just how lacking in generosity in following the Lord I am now.

So, what to do? What to do?

I know! Two things, really…

(1) Be faithful to the Lord in absolutely every circumstance no matter what, depending on His grace. In conjunction with this, keeping us with the sacraments, Confession and Holy Communion.

(2) Pray for the souls in purgatory.

The souls in purgatory can’t help themselves, but silently await our prayers. A deafening silence. They are tugging at our hearts and souls. You know all that “moment of silence” stuff during times of catastrophe, etc.? That’s came about in Catholic Ireland in the days of yore when, with all Catholic pedagogy, had people pray for those who had no voice anymore, that is, precisely, the souls in purgatory.

Our prayers for them are extremely efficacious before the throne of God because it’s a gratuitous act of charity for those who are in desperate need.

And… and… our prayers in the end really aren’t so gratuitous, because we ourselves gain immensely. We grow in charity and cut our time in purgatory, even, in our Lord’s mercy, cutting out our time in purgatory altogether.

I think this cutting down of any time in purgatory also has to do with those we’ve delivered from purgatory by our prayers. They are just so very anxious to greet us to thank us that when we die, they are just so right in the face of our Lord and our Blessed Mother interceding with them that we be allowed straightaway into heaven, because, you know, they can’t wait to greet us, to thank us, even though we would then have all eternity to get acquainted! Hah! And away we go into the pearly gates. I love that. Heaven is heaven, after all.

So, that’s really cool, that kind of purgatory here on earth, I mean, you know, compared to the fire-like purgation after this life.

And, just a reminder, we have a Holy Souls Hermitage Holy Souls Challenge [Link fixed!] going on for the month of November: See if you can take up the challenge. Get those priests and bishops out of purgatory!

Also, just to say, if you ever have something you want to storm heaven about, pray for the Holy Souls. They will just so take up that cause should it be in the will of our Lord. Really! I mean: Yikes! Like that. Yikes!