Purgatory

Thanks to Anonymous who sent in the directory of the priests in the diocese. This is a great aid to praying for priests by name!

This page will be about purgatory and the special place of priests in the purgatory of this life and the next. Not what you might expect. This will be rather glorious. I think people have the wrong idea of purgatory altogether, perhaps because of the “Reformation” or recent moves to do away with limbo, etc. But, we will see. Stay tuned!

Here are some preliminary thoughts I’m beginning to jot down:

(1) Purgatory is about being enlightened as to just how much the Lord loves us. Pope Benedict XVI speaks of this as Christ’s gazing upon the soul which has just passed from this life to the next. Indeed. I can only imagine that if we have not been generous with the Lord, it will be rather excruciating to look into the eyes of the Lord, before whom there is no untruth. In beginning to lift our eyes, we will see the wounds on the feet of the Lord. Sure, we will perceive those wounds as an invitation to thank Him, not as a sign of our condemnation. There is much to go through for the soul that has not been generous with the love of the Lord. In lifting our eyes further, we can see His wounded hands, streached out to us. He loves us. Lifting our eyes further, we see His open side, His open Heart. How generous the Lord has been with us, giving His very life! How lacking in generousity we have been. We do not deserve His love. We learn to take our eyes off ourselves and look to Him, beginning to learn to thank Him. Then we see His eyes, which demonstrate His love, but which also seach into the deepest places of our souls. This is where the soul is humbled — finally, wonderfully — to know its place before Jesus, in humble thanksgiving. Purgatory in this life is much the same, teaching us how to be in humble thanksgiving before the Lord, how to be generous with His love, by His grace.

(2) The difference between the purgatory of this life and the next is that…

(3) Those who are priests in the purgatory of this life and the next are in a rather unique situation, for the very state of one’s priesthood demands that…

(4) Praying for the sanctification of priests in the purgatory of this life or the next is so very important, for this sanctification involves not just the priest himself, but those…

(5) …

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(A) Some Scriptural notes on purgatory…

(B) Some doctrinal notes on purgatory…

(C) Some controversy on purgatory…

(D) What Holy Souls Hermitage on Holy Souls Mountain has to do with all this…

(E) The Holy Souls Hermitage Priests’ Purgatory Project …

(F) …

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2. From an email from a priest:

I am wondering about your thinking there are priests in Purgatory. Yes, there must be…and they are going to be there for a long time, probably…but you can change that. But I was just thinking of what St. John Chrysostom and others say…that most priests go a little further down than Purgatory. Yikes. I am working hard to prevent that. But it is a two-edged sword… A priest cannot just save himself or lose his soul…he always takes a train load with him in either direction.

“Most”… I’ll have to look up the original languages… For those thinking about a vocation to the priesthood, don’t be scared off by this. Trust in Christ Jesus, our Savior, who is so good and so kind.