Can you help me with my confusion about Christ dying for our sins?

[andyp1948]

Please show me the error of my reasoning.
I truly believe that Christ paid the price for all sin for all time. His was a perfect sacrifice which was required to appease God the father.
On the other hand the church teaches that, if we commit a mortal sin and die without true repentance we are destined to hell. That is not a problem, because if Christ is paying the price for our sins we should at least be repentant. Reconciliation within the confessional is the ideal situation but sincere repentance outside of the confessional will also safe us from eternal damnation. Still no problem.
We then are to believe that in spite of sincere repentance we must acquire additional purification in purgatory to be worthy of entering heaven. That is my problem. If we need to pay for our sins in purgatory, how does the price Christ paid fit in.
It does not save us from hell if we are not repentant and it does not save us form purgatory if we are repentant. What am I missing here?

 

[Fr.Vincent_Serpa]

Hi,

I have used this example here so often that some, I’m sure, are sick of reading it. Say I take a pitcher of orange juice from my mother’s refrigerator and drop it on the floor. I immediately apologize and my mother forgives me. So I am completely forgiven. But there is still a mess on the floor. Certainly, it is not my mother’s responsibility to clean up the mess. It is MY responsibility to clean it up or to repair the situation–or to make reparation for the situation. This is what Purgatory does. Purgatory does not remit our sins. Christ has done that perfectly. Purgatory consists of making reparation for the temporal effects of our sins.

For more, see: catholic.com/library/Purgatory.asp

catholic.com/library/Roots_of_Purgatory.asp

Fr. Vincent Serpa, O.P.