“Climbing the Stairway to Heaven”

In its communal reflection on death and eternal life, the Church came to teach the possibility of purification in, or after, death. Official statements of this belief were made in a number of medieval Church councils. They taught that those who die in a state of grace but who are still burdened with the temporal punishment due to sin already forgiven (the effects of sin in their lives) or who still have the guilt of venial sin (sin that is not grave) undergo purgation after death. These medieval statements drew on certain passages in the Scriptures that speak of the purification of believers, as well as the writings of important theologians in the early Church, like Cyprian, Gregory of Nyssa and Augustine. These doctrines also were based on a concrete practice: the Church’s ancient practice of praying for the deceased. Early on, the Church came to believe that the deceased are assisted by the prayers of the Christian community.

What is this all about? At times the notion of “purgatory” was represented in rather crude ways – as a kind of “celestial concentration camp” where sinners underwent “hard labor” (or even torture) before they could be admitted into heaven. Calculations were made in earthly time about the duration of this experience of purification. The image of fire was prevalent. Such images were used in order to express a reality that is beyond our experience. As Benedict says in his encyclical, “We can neither see into the world beyond death nor do we have any experience of it” (n. 46). Sometimes, though, the images can get in the way of the belief; images can obscure as well as illuminate.

In Spe Salvi, the pope offers a reflection on purification that is quite cogent and compelling. We make many choices in life, and through those individual choices we formulate a basic choice, what Benedict calls a “life-choice.” This life-choice can be a choice for God and God’s will or a decision against God. We believe that with death this life-choice becomes definitive. For many of us, even when this basic decision is for God there are dimensions of our lives that are not consistent with this choice. I certainly want to orient my entire life toward God, but so often I recognize that what I have said or done contradicts such an orientation. As the pope says, often my basic decision for God “is covered over by ever new compromises with evil” (n. 46). There is some “stuff” in my life that covers over, and sometimes obscures, my deepest desire to love God and to love others. Catholic belief in purification means that through death we may need to be purified so that this other “stuff” is stripped away and our basic choice for God is illumined.

In writings on the topic that he authored as a theologian and in his recent encyclical, Benedict speaks of this purification in the language of encounter. Purgatory is not so much a place as it is an encounter with the Risen Christ. In death we encounter the Risen Lord who is pure love, pure grace. As the pope puts it, our encounter with Christ “transforms and frees us, allowing us to become truly ourselves” (n. 47). Ultimately it is the pure, indomitable love of Christ that purifies us. This process may be “painful” but it is the work of divine love. In Benedict’s words, “At the moment of judgment we experience and we absorb the overwhelming power of his love over all the evil in the world and in ourselves” (n. 47).

The tradition of prayer for the deceased reflects the belief that we can help one another in this process of purification. Just as we believe that our prayers for the living are efficacious, so lifting up the departed in prayer somehow assists them in their encounter with the Risen Lord. “The belief that love can reach into the afterlife, that reciprocal giving and receiving is possible, in which our affection for one another continues beyond the limits of death – this has been a fundamental conviction of Christianity throughout the ages and remains a source of comfort today” (n. 48). We do not have a mathematical formula by which to calculate exactly how this prayer for the dead “works.” But just as we would pray for a living person who is in the hospital, so we are called to remember in prayer those who have gone before us in death.