I read this book several yrs ago that was written by a priest… and he (and those cited in the book) said that Purgatory is excrutiatingly painful, especially in the lower levels… Even Padre Pio spent an hour or so in Purgatory, as holy as he was (seemed to be). The usual length of time there is 40 yrs… :hypno:
i am wondering if you know anything further about Purgatory… preferably written by a saint?
First, don’t believe everything you read. The Church strongly recommends you to learn the Catholic Faith so that you don’t fall into error. I recommend the Catechism of the Catholic Church - it is the presenation of the Church’s teachings, and while it is not infallible, every Catholic is required to accept what is written in it (since it’s Church teaching).
Now, it is left up to theologians about how Purgatory “works”, whether it has lesser fire in one stage and greater fire in another, or whether it has stages at all, and so forth. It’s all theological speculation and personal meditation, not Church teaching.
I don’t know if Padre Pio was actually in Purgatory, but I do know that Canonization means the saint is in heaven and, unless I’m mistaken, it means the saint went immediately into heaven, i.e., not through purgatory to heaven but went directly to heaven after death.
There is no time in Purgatory. Purgatory, like Heaven and Hell, is timeless. The Church has never taught there is no time in the world to come, because there actually isn’t any time. Being spiritual words, they are eternal, without time, so placing times on them would be ridiculous and contrary to the truth. You must be referring to the old, old method of indulgences, such as “If you say this prayer, you will be lessened in Purgatory by this many years”. Those methods of indulgences are no longer practiced in the Church because (a) they were confusing and (b) they did not, as some confused them to be, refer to the length of stay in Purgatory but rather to the length it was necessary to do the prayer or penance. Now, imagine a prayer requiring you to say it for a thousand years. Can you imagine how impossible that would be? Yet indulgences like that existed, and so, the Church had to stop it.
Finally, I encourage you to be cautious about what you read, whether its from Priests or theologians or whoever. Just because someone has a certain office in the Church - even the Pope - dose not mean they are free from error. (The Pope only exercises his infallibility in the given circumstances, not every time he speaks or writes as some Catholics think) So learn the Catholic Faith and be careful what you read. You don’t want to read stuff like Father Gobbi’s book, which is full of heresies and departures from the Catholic Faith (“Jesus will come again in glory in the year 2000,” as one verse in his book states!).
