What is Purgatory?????

[Phil467]

I have often heard the temr used by the church, but always defined differently be different people. Can anyone out there tell me what the official definition and description of Purgatory is?

 

[Aaron_I]

From the Catechism:

III. THE FINAL PURIFICATION, OR PURGATORY

1030 All who die in God’s grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven.

1031 The Church gives the name Purgatory to this final purification of the elect, which is entirely different from the punishment of the damned.604 The Church formulated her doctrine of faith on Purgatory especially at the Councils of Florence and Trent. The tradition of the Church, by reference to certain texts of Scripture, speaks of a cleansing fire:605

As for certain lesser faults, we must believe that, before the Final Judgment, there is a purifying fire. He who is truth says that whoever utters blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will be pardoned neither in this age nor in the age to come. From this sentence we understand that certain offenses can be forgiven in this age, but certain others in the age to come.606

1032 This teaching is also based on the practice of prayer for the dead, already mentioned in Sacred Scripture: "Therefore [Judas Maccabeus] made atonement for the dead, that they might be delivered from their sin."607 From the beginning the Church has honored the memory of the dead and offered prayers in suffrage for them, above all the Eucharistic sacrifice, so that, thus purified, they may attain the beatific vision of God.608 The Church also commends almsgiving, indulgences, and works of penance undertaken on behalf of the dead:

Let us help and commemorate them. If Job's sons were purified by their father's sacrifice, why would we doubt that our offerings for the dead bring them some consolation? Let us not hesitate to help those who have died and to offer our prayers for them.609

Anything beyond that is speculation

 

[awalt]

Purgatory is the process that saved people go through upon their death, whereby any remaining Love of Self is eliminated and replaced by Love of God and Love of Neighbor.

 

[Bishopite]

Phil467:

I have often heard the temr used by the church, but always defined differently be different people. Can anyone out there tell me what the official definition and description of Purgatory is?

In a nutshell, it is the final process of sanctification with which those entering heaven need to go through in order to be perfectly holy so that they can be in the presence of a perfectly holy God (Heb 12:14).

Sanctified means to be made holy or being made holy and without absolute holiness no one can enter into heaven (Rev 21:27). Most people who die in Gods favor (with sanctifying grace) still haven’t fully or totally given every portion of their will to God in full repentance, so this will need to be purged off in order to enter into Gods presence.

 

[Pryority7]

Hello all,

I used to have a confused view on Purgatory. I was given the sense that Purgatory somehow took away from the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross. That we somehow still had to pay for our own sins after death. That it was also a place for unrepentant sinnners to get one more opportunity to repent, therefore contradicting scripture “It is appointed for men to die once, after this comes judgement” and “there is no second chance after death” (I don’t remember the exact verses right now. Please forgive me on that).
Now I know better. Purgatory isn’t so much a place as it is a state the soul goes through upon death. It’s the beginning of Heaven…Heaven’s orientation room so to speak. We are not paying for our sins, our sins are being removed.
Think about it…we all have a sinful nature, and this sinful nature is something we will struggle with for the rest of our lives. When we die, what happens to this nature? Does it just disappear? God finishes what He started in us when we began our walk with Him…our sanctification is complete. Our sin natures are removed (I read the fundamentalist Hal Lindsey state this in his book, there’s a new world coming this very thing, yet he does not believe in purgatory…or so he claims…the irony…)
It will seem like pain and loss to us because we will be saying goodbye to the sinners that we are…forever…Goodbyes are painful, but in this case neccesary. Revelation 21 states that nothing unclean can enter heaven. Have you every met someone who is completely clean from sin and still alive? Nope…We are all sinners and when we leave this world our sin natures will be removed as we go to be with Him who made our salvation possible by His Death and Ressurection. His death on the Cross is not subtracted by this belief…it is enforced.

 

[Malachi4U]

Purgatory is a One-Way ticket to heaven! It is not a place. It is a name given to a process God has of cleansing our souls on the way to His kingdom.

These words are not in the Bible, “Trinity” and “Purgatory”. They both are just words that describe something. Protestants accept the Trinity word but get shivers with the word Purgatory since it proves, along with Sacred Scripture of course, that their Sola Fida and Assurance inventions are 100% false!