God’s peace. Being in purgatory IS being present with the Lord! Consider this:
Because purgation is painful, many represent it as being somewhere very close to hell, with God’s face withdrawn from those within–a place of punishment. THIS IS FALSE! Not only is purgatory a place/state very close to heaven–at the very door, so to speak–but Our Lord is there, lovingly administering the purgation to the Holy Souls as the last step of his saving work.
The salvation of the Holy Souls in purgatory is ASSURED. Here on Earth, you can’t know with absolute certainty that you are going to wind up in heaven; all you can have is the “certainty of hope.” But upon death, the very fact that you are in purgatory means that you are CERTAINLY being made fit for heaven!
Purgatory is painful, but also joyful, as others have said. Imagine–no more sinning–you’ve won the race! Wouldn’t you be joyful–just as a marathon runner is, exhausted and shaking, when he crosses the finish line?
Blessings,
I’ll try to be clear here. I understand that the CC doesnot take the fire of hell as a literal representation, but teaches Hell is the state of eternal separation from God. It would follow that purgatory is not a ‘place of fire’ but a state of transition. What purging can take place if, in purgatory, we have a promise of being in communion with God? I hope that this question is clear.
It is the quality of our love that is being purified. One can easily love God out of selfish motives. For example, one can love the consolations that God gives us much more than one loves God himself.
Our love and our faith is tested in this world by the crosses that God gives us to carry. A person with imperfect love may resent the crosses in their lives because they love consolations more than they love God. In this life, we may try to live a life of cross avoidance, and by doing that, we miss the opportunities of purifying our love by joyfully carrying our crosses. In purgatory, one finishes the purification process that one should have completed on this earth, and that will involve some sort of suffering - suffering that was avoided by shirking the cross in this world.
In the end, the soul in purgatory is perfected in holiness, and he is able to receive the love of God to the extent that he is capable of receiving it. The rewards that we receive in heaven are the measure of our capacity to receive God’s love. The more we learn how to give and receive perfect love in this world, the more capacity to give and receive perfect love we will have in the next world. We will all be full of God’s love in Heaven, but some will be like thimbles that are full, and some will be like lakes or seas that are full.
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