Sins, Confession & Purgatory?

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Hi all,

Im wondering, why do we have the sacrament of reconciliation to be absolved of our sins but yet one would still have to go purgatory to be cleansed and purified before we enter the Kingdom Of Heaven?

Sorry if I sound a little dumb as Im sure there is a simple explanation, but im trying to learn more about my faith as I have recently come back to the church.

Thanks and god bless,

Tony.
 
Sin, like any wrongdoing, has two different types of consequences. One is the spiritual consequence, the other is the temporal (non-spiritual) consequence. The spiritual consequence is the damage to our relationship with God. The temporal consequence is the harm our sins do to ourselves, our neighbours and so on (since every sin does this sort of harm as well).

Forgiveness removes the spiritual consequences, enabling us to be forgiven and (eventually) go to heaven, but the temporal harms remain. They can be removed by penances we do during our lives - indulgences, prayer, fasting, almsgiving - or else in purgatory. Not everyone has to go to purgatory before entering heaven.

The way it’s usually explained is like this. Imagine little Johnny breaks the neighbour’s window with his baseball. Of course he will go to the neighbour and apologise, and since the neighbour is nice they will forgive him, and the relationship between them will be fine again. That’s what happens in confession between us and God.

But the window remains broken even after the apology (temporal consequences/harms that need repair). Johnny, since he broke it, has an obligation to either repair it himself, to pay for its repair, do chores for the neighbour to work off the cost of the repairs or what have you.

That’s what purgatory, as well as the other things I’ve mentioned, do, they are where we work off the temporal consequences of sin. Part of these temporal consequences is worked off by the penance the priest gives in confession (which is one reason why we are given a penance to perform) but not all.
 
tonyk84 said:
Hi all,

Im wondering, why do we have the sacrament of reconciliation to be absolved of our sins but yet one would still have to go purgatory to be cleansed and purified before we enter the Kingdom Of Heaven?

Sorry if I sound a little dumb as Im sure there is a simple explanation, but im trying to learn more about my faith as I have recently come back to the church.

Thanks and god bless,

Tony.
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I would have to say that purgatory is also
for the removal of non-mortal sins which you have forgotten or not had opportunity to confess before death.
Indulgences, plenary or partial, give the means to remove the consequences of sin provided the sin has been confessed and forgiven.
The Church can thus offer the total removal of sin; both its forgivness, and a means for the removal of its consequences.
 
tonyk84 said:
Hi all,

Im wondering, why do we have the sacrament of reconciliation to be absolved of our sins but yet one would still have to go purgatory to be cleansed and purified before we enter the Kingdom Of Heaven?

Sorry if I sound a little dumb as Im sure there is a simple explanation, but im trying to learn more about my faith as I have recently come back to the church.

Thanks and god bless,

Tony.
Click to expand...
I believe it is also for the purging of any lingering attachment to that sin. While the forgiveness is absolute … the effects of sin still linger within us and those too need to be purged.

While many see this as punishment I understand Purgatory as the soul “sees” as necessary once one can see themselves as God see us. One is much more ready to finally be rid of this attachment to anything other than God that the soul almost welcomes the chance to be totally purified and pure.
 
I like this analogy. When you’re baptized you have a clean slate, you are like a fresh sheet of paper. Every time we sin, we crumple that piece of paper into a ball, everytime we go to confession we uncrumple that ball and make it as flat as we can, we’re forgiven, but those wrinkles of sin will never ever be completely perfect again no matter how well you flatten that sheet out, so when we die we go to purgatory to have all those wrinkles ironed out, and that piece of paper is made perfect again. HTH
 
1edyson said:
I like this analogy. When you’re baptized you have a clean slate, you are like a fresh sheet of paper. Every time we sin, we crumple that piece of paper into a ball, everytime we go to confession we uncrumple that ball and make it as flat as we can, we’re forgiven, but those wrinkles of sin will never ever be completely perfect again no matter how well you flatten that sheet out, so when we die we go to purgatory to have all those wrinkles ironed out, and that piece of paper is made perfect again. HTH
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Except, as I’ve said before, there are means other than purgatory by which we can iron out those wrinkles.

We can make the effort to obtain indulgences, which is one of the best ways, and we can take on voluntary penances - extra prayer, fasting, almsgiving and so on. These things achieve the same job, just that few of us do them often enough!

In fact each and every one of us should be aiming to obtain as many indulgences as we can each day, and do as much penance as we can while on earth, in order to avoid purgatory, since if we try to get straight to heaven and fail at least we’ll end up in purgatory, whereas if we try merely to get to purgatory and fail in that aim … :eek:
 
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