(continued…)
When a child is confined to a corner, he may be told it is for an hour, some amount of time, or some other factor (such as a change of attitude). But while sitting there, looking at the corner, time seems unending and, in a way, cannot be measured, cannot be sensed. The child may be so bold as to ask, “How much longer?” Without bodies to sense, we also will not sense time, so how long is it? How long has it been? How much longer will it be until I am able to be with God? That kind of thinking will actually not be present in Purgatory, either, because it happens in the brain, the analysis of time and of waiting. And the brain died with the body. Actually, there will be a desire for God, and a sorrow because that desire is not “do-able”. A human needs his body to do things, so it will be like frustration, like “dis-satisfaction”. But there will also be the understanding, the knowing, of the soul. And somehow it will come about that the soul will finally know only the grace, the goodness, the justice of God
While you are enduring the time of restraint from satisfaction in Purgatory, it may be that someone yet alive in the world remembers you and prays to God for you. That person may also enter a period of self-denial, enduring loss of their will’s satisfaction, and asking God that he take this instead of continuing to restrain you. And this is acceptable to God, that a person may restore equality of justice in place of the person owing the equality.
When the Spirit moves you from Purgatory to the presence of God, you will enter in the joy of friendship and bring with you the satisfaction of what he intends you to have rather than the satisfactions your sins procured. If someone else has made reparation for you, you will know their suffering as your own. In this end in the presence of God you are “pure”. That means you stand before God both as his friend, his child, his subject, and you will stand in an “ordered fashion” before him, for you stand as a person who has in his makeup, his history, only the equivalent of blessing that comes from God alone, and you do not stand with an understanding of yourself possessing self-acquired happiness apart from God.
Is it possible to forego Purgatory altogether, being immediately brought into the presence and friendship of God when your die?
It is possible, and Jesus himself told his disciples about it. When they asked him to teach them to pray, he gave them this phrase to address to their Father, “Forgive us our trespasses / debts, as we forgive those who trespass against us / our debtors.” At another time he told them about an unforgiving servant who had himself been forgiven. The unforgiving servant refused forgiveness to a fellow servant, but when his master found out this unforgiving servant was put into prison until his own debt was paid. The servant did not want to do without the “satisfaction” of having the money the other owed him, while his own master was willing to do without the satisfaction of having the money this wicked servant owed him. Jesus was telling his disciples when you give up your “rightful satisfaction” that someone stole from you (by their trespassing against you) you are being like your Father in heaven, and like his Son, Jesus, who did without his life so you would be forgiven.
Why would that enable full forgiveness of all experiences of satisfaction that we stole? Because when you give up your hope of satisfaction, your anticipation, you are actually giving up your life. We think we need to experience this satisfaction to be “fully alive”, but giving up this anticipation of the justice owed to you is letting go of life you had once wanted in order that another person would not suffer. You are suited for heaven because you are looking to your Father to grant you life in spite of the “death of not being fulfilled” with repayment from those who have sinned against you. Repeating a line from above, “You stand as a person who has in his makeup, his history, only the equivalent of blessing that comes from God alone, and you do not stand with an understanding of yourself possessing self-acquired happiness apart from God.”
Forgiving those who “owe you”, who have stolen goodness from you, is not as easy as simply saying, “I forgive everyone.” It means looking inside yourself to see what is missing in you. What happiness do you lack, what justice is missing? And who is the cause of this missing happiness or justice? If it were a matter of money, as in the story Jesus related to his disciples, if your actual net worth was one million dollars, yet part of that worth was a debt owed you of two hundred thousand dollars, and the debtor could not pay, forgiveness would mean you tell the debtor he is free of the debt, and then, more importantly you no longer look at your net worth the same, but you start your books afresh and declare your net worth to yourself to be eight hundred thousand dollars, with no more looks at the former debtor as a debtor. Forgiveness is in yourself, no longer believing you are missing anything, and being grateful to the God who says that He, as well, is missing nothing you had owed Him.
But, how will you “stand before God” when you have no body when upon death or from Purgatory you attain Heaven? How will you see God, to look him in the eyes when you have no eyes? How will you thank him without a tongue? And how will you ponder his goodness and majesty without a brain? That will be the next installment on the Mystery of Heaven.
John Martin (with collaboration of Mark Anthony)
end of series from
softvocation.org/2014/09/24/the-last-things-part-i/
