I was listening to the radio program from a past show and a caller asked that even after confession will we still have to go to purgatory? The Apologist said even if it is a perfect confession we will still most likely go to purgatory.
It confused me a little as for two reasons.
- I thought the act of repenting and genuinely being regretful for the sin. I thought that the priest would absolve you from your sins so as you could go to heaven.
- I thought when Jesus sacrificed himself for our sins it gave us the opportunity to go straight to heaven if we do repent. It just confuses me that the sacrifice of God wasn’t enough to send us straight to heaven.
Any comments?
But repentance on its own (even forgiveness of sins) of itself doesn’t guarantee that we get to heaven without a pitstop in purgatory first.
Heaven, remember, is a place where nothing imperfect can enter. Even the saintliest people often have smaller or bigger imperfections that leave them in a state where they’re not immediately fit for heaven. And they have also accrued TEMPORAL (earthly, not spiritual) punishment merited by their sins.
If you think of sin in terms of having earthly consequences as well as spiritual ones (which are the ones that have to do with damnation), it’s that debt we owe for the earthly consequences of our sins that is paid off in purgatory.
As an example, if you break your neighbour’s window they may forgive you and still let you visit , still be friends with you etc, but the window is still broken and still needs fixing. So in addition to apologising (which is what you do in confession) you will probably do something else (offer to pay for the window to be fixed, or do their lawn for free for a few weeks or something).
Now everyone in purgatory is
guaranteed to get to heaven after a greater or lesser time spent there working off the temporal punishment due to their sins. So Jesus’ sacrifice does ensure the salvation of all his followers who die in a state of grace. It doesn’t pay off the EARTHLY consequences of our sins though. Some of them we suffer even here on earth, as you can see every day.
Now if we’re in purgatory we can be helped by the prayers of others for us after we die (which is why we pray for souls in purgatory). But we can also try to gain what are called INDULGENCES (which is a partial or complete ‘paying off’ of that sin debt which we have accumulated). Certain specified prayers and pious acts are recorded in the Enchiridon of Indulgences, so that we can know that if we do or say them under certain conditions we can gain a partial or full (plenary) indulgence.
