Topic: Explanation of Purgatory and praying for the dead in November

Source of this posting: Newman Parish bulletin

Date originally posted: December 18, 2001

Moderator who originally posted this source: P.Leach

Question: What is Purgatory?  And why do Catholics pray for dead people? 

Answer: 

During the month of November the Church invites us to remember the “faithful departed” in our Liturgies and prayers.  All of those who have “gone before us, marked with the sign of faith” surround us – a great cloud of witnesses, as the Sacred Scripture calls them.  We pray with them and for them. 

The Catholic Church has never “officially” believed in ‘limbo.’   

But we have always believed in Purgatory.  Purgatory is that reality in which the faithful departed complete any temporal punishments for sin before entering fully into the glory of heaven. 

Purgatory is not some kind of last point-of-decision in which a Divine Arena Master points a thumb up or down to indicate a soul’s ultimate end.  (I can’t help but think of Joaquin Phoenix in “Gladiator.”) 

EVERYBODY in Purgatory goes to heaven. 

I tend to talk about Purgatory as the “front porch” of heaven.   On the front porch of a home, which – reached after running through the mud and muck of a storm – promises safe haven and respite from the elements, we clean ourselves of all that has stuck to us on the mad dash through the wind and rain.  We’re not quite “in” the house, with all its lovely furniture, warmth, and glowing light, but the porch is a safe and welcome place compared to the scary lightning and gusts of the storm through which we have come. 

So, in Purgatory, we are not yet in the glory of our heavenly Home.  In fact, Purgatory, by comparison to Heaven, is a dull and difficult place.  But the value of Purgatory is that it affords us a ‘place’ to prepare ourselves – to shake off that filth which may cling to us, to dry our clothes, and to put our hair in order, so to speak.  When, after Purgatory, we go into the glory of God’s Divine and Eternal Glory we enter properly prepared. 

During November we assist our loved ones and friends, all the faithful departed, with our prayers and liturgical participation.  We aid them in that last bit of preparation before they enter God’s Presence – so that they will be “there” to welcome us when, at the end of our own pilgrimage, we, too, are called home to God.