A Convert to Catholicism Tells How She Had Been Shocked and Captivated to Learn of Purgatory; a Story Given in Honor of All Souls Day, Held This Novem

[mdgspencer]

All Souls Day is the day Catholics remember and pray for those in purgatory.
Growing up Protestant, she recalls that she had believed people went to heaven immediately when they died, “even the drunken uncle who didn’t ‘exactly’ beat his wife, but certainly made her life uncomfortable, to the coworker who never once, in the 20 years she worked with her, as much as mentioned God.”
“The day I was introduced to the topic of purgatory was a life-changer for me”… When I dug this jewel out of the box of Catholic teaching, it was both beautiful and terrifying."
see comshalom.org/en/prayer-purgatory-souls-day/

 

[adamhovey1988]

All Souls Day is the day Catholics remember and pray for those in purgatory.
Growing up Protestant, she recalls that she had believed people went to heaven immediately when they died, “even the drunken uncle who didn’t ‘exactly’ beat his wife, but certainly made her life uncomfortable, to the coworker who never once, in the 20 years she worked with her, as much as mentioned God.”
“The day I was introduced to the topic of purgatory was a life-changer for me”… When I dug this jewel out of the box of Catholic teaching, it was both beautiful and terrifying."
see comshalom.org/en/prayer-purgatory-souls-day/

I like the idea of Purgatory. If nothing unclean can enter heaven and we’re all sinners, logically we’d need to be purified. Otherwise, I am pretty sure we’d all go to hell.

 

[boomerang]

I wonder if the feelings work the same in reverse, too.

If those who convert from Catholicism to another Christian denomination are both shocked and captivated to discover there is no purgatory, and that way more people go to heaven–and much more quickly–than what they had been previously taught.

.

That very situation is the source of much vitriol on the part of Catholics who abandon the faith for Protestantism. They claim they’ve “been deceived” all those years in the Catholic Church but now they “know the truth.” Well, even if we ultimately get to the afterlife and discover that there is no purgatory, it did us no harm in believing it while we lived. In fact, belief in purgatory should, in theory, make us better people if only to avoid going there!

 

[esieffe]

I like the idea of Purgatory. If nothing unclean can enter heaven and we’re all sinners, logically we’d need to be purified. Otherwise, I am pretty sure we’d all go to hell.

Thats for sure, and pretending otherwise offers no protection.

 

[jtav]

I think most Protestants believe in a de facto Purgatory; they just think it’s instantaneous and our prayers can’t help the dead. I always got the impression as a Protestant that those who had what we’d call some attachment to sin would get the heavenly equivalent of a broom closet for a mansion.

 

[JimG]

I think most Protestants believe in a de facto Purgatory; they just think it’s instantaneous and our prayers can’t help the dead. I always got the impression as a Protestant that those who had what we’d call some attachment to sin would get the heavenly equivalent of a broom closet for a mansion.

Since nothing imperfect can enter heaven, many Protestants do, I think, believe that those who are “saved” will immediately be perfected at death and go to heaven. But that “being perfected” part–it’s just purgatory in fact, whether it’s instantaneous or not. Somehow we have to get from being imperfect in this life to being perfect in heaven.