Forgiving one another & Purgatory

[DL82]

Many commentaries I have seen have used this passage:
Matthew 5:25
“Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are on the way to court with him, or your accuser may hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you will be thrown into prison.”
As a justification for purgatory, we can be saved, but we will still pay the last penny for the temporal punishment of our sins.

Does this mean that we should always try to get others to forgive us, so that we can escape that penalty? I know we ought to forgive one another, but should we also beg forgiveness of everyone we’ve hurt or think we might have hurt? I do try, but will God really be influenced by whether others are hard-hearted and unforgiving when He judges us?

 

[Deidre]

Does this mean that we should always try to get others to forgive us, so that we can escape that penalty? I know we ought to forgive one another, but should we also beg forgiveness of everyone we’ve hurt or think we might have hurt? I do try, but will God really be influenced by whether others are hard-hearted and unforgiving when He judges us?

If you sin against someone you definitely need to ask their forgiveness. You also have the responsibility to make amends for the sin to the best of your ability. (If you’ve stolen money, you should pay it back. If you’ve lied about them, you should make a retraction, etc.)

With that being said, you cannot make somebody forgive you. If you find that someone you’ve hurt will not forgive you once you’ve tried to make amends, you could pray and ask God to soften their hearts. But this wouldn’t be so much for your benefit as for theirs. This would be a spiritual act of mercy, because if they don’t forgive, their soul would be endangered.

Purgatory has nothing to do with whether or not somebody else forgives you. Purgatory is a process of purification for your own soul. The more you can detach yourself from sin in this life, the less time you will need to work on it in the next. The best way to do that here is by frequent use of the sacraments, including the Sacrament of Penance.

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