47 lines
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47 lines
2.6 KiB
HTML
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<p>Purgatory is perhaps one of the most misunderstood Catholic doctrine.
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So much so that even many Catholics have difficulty understanding it.
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Protestants will err in saying that it's a sort of waiting room before a
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soul enters Heaven, and Eastern Orthodox will err in saying that
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Catholics believe it's a light version of Hell. Both of these, however,
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miss the target, despite the true meaning being in the name itself:
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purging or purification.</p>
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<blockquote>
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"All who die in God's grace and friendship, but still imperfectly
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purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after
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death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness
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necessary to enter the joy of heaven. The Church gives the name
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Purgatory to this final purification of the elect, which is entirely
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different from the punishment of the damned."<br />
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- <i>Catechism of the Catholic Church</i> § 1030-1031
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</blockquote>
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<p>Even so, the concept of Purgatory can still be difficult to
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understand: if God has forgiven me of my sins, why must I go through a
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process of purification? I believe this difficulty with the concept of
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Purgatory is the product of something I've mentioned in my previous
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post about <i>Sin & Hell</i>. Although "[Sin] is an offense against
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God"<sup><a href="#r1" >[1]</a></sup>, it would seem we're sometimes
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limited to believing it is only this, when in reality sin has a real
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negative effect on our immortal souls, causing deformities to the image
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& likeness of God in which we were all created. This is similar to
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how when a child misbehaves: although the child suffers first-hand the
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consequences of his actions, his bad behaviour is an offense to his
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father who raised him better. As such, if sin causes injury to our
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souls, then our souls will also require healing, not just forgiveness of
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our Heavenly Father. As such, Purgatory is not simply a <i>tiny
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hell</i>, as it's not a question of punishment.</p>
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<p>Yet, sometimes the process for healing and purification can be more
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painful than the injury itself. Hence why Purgatory is not a waiting
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room, but rather a place where those who find themselves there are cured
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back to that perfect image & likeness which they were created with.
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This process can be painful. To give an analogous anecdote, recently I
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had cut my hand with a knife; the injury itself hardly hurt, but the
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process of cleaning it and mending it hurt many times more than the
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injury itself. If this is true for physical wounds, why would it not be
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true for wounds of the soul? Our souls require healing and
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purification.</p>
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<label>[1]</label> <i>Catechism of the Catholic Church</i> § 1871
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