I didn't prepare for this particular interview, I just kind of winged it. I also didn't wear a tie or suit, just a button down dress shirt. I didn't really know what to expect or what kind of job it was, if it called for it or not, so I dressed down and treated the whole thing kind of casually (I know, I know). I presented well, but totally did not dress the part. To this day, I was amazed they hired me and that I was so oblivious to the oversight. Even though I was good for the job, I obviously had not gotten the "interviewing 101" memo, and it's embarrassing (thought forgivable) to think about it now.
I relay this story as an unsteady metaphor. If we're honest with ourselves, we treat the idea of heaven rather casually, don't we? We just assume we will go there when we die if we are "basically good people," and that we don't really have to prepare when we face God at our personal day of judgement. We'll just kind of wing it and trust that God will understand that we belong there just because. People down below on earth will be saying, 'he's in a better place now' at our funeral.
It can be a complete faux pas if you ever tell a (Protestant) Christian friend you are praying for their dead grandmother, husband, uncle, etc. They recoil at the suggestion--the Bible is clear that there is Heaven and there is Hell, and that's it. People in heaven don't need prayers, nor do those in Hell, since both are permanent, unchanging states.
While this is true about the unchanging permanency of Heaven and Hell, Catholic Christians acknowledge a third state after death known as purgatory. What is it? To the ire of Christians who discount it as a Romanist invention--despite the fact that it was believed since the earliest years of the church til today--purgatory is a state after death in which the soul is undergoing purification. Souls here are truly suffering (the Church Suffering, as it is known) but not for all eternity--they are bound for Heaven after the period of purification. These souls belong to people who died in a state of friendship with God (not in a state of mortal sin) but who were not completely freed of sin and its effects during this lifetime. Think about it like a young boy who throws a baseball through his grandmother's window out of anger--he is sorry for it, she knows it and forgives him--but there's still the broken window to deal with. This is the effect or consequence of our sin.
While it is true the word purgatory does not appear in the bible, neither does the term trinity, and yet is is a theologically accepted belief, that of three persons/one God. There is a good explanation here:
A study of the history of doctrines indicates that Christians in the first centuries were up in arms (sometimes quite literally) if anyone suggested the least change in beliefs. They were extremely conservative people who tested a doctrine’s truth by asking, Was this believed by our ancestors? Was it handed on from the apostles? Surely belief in purgatory would be considered a great change, if it had not been believed from the first—so where are the records of protests?
They don’t exist. There is no hint at all, in the oldest writings available to us (or in later ones, for that matter), that "true believers" in the immediate post-apostolic years spoke of purgatory as a novel doctrine. They must have understood that the oral teaching of the apostles, what Catholics call tradition, and the Bible not only failed to contradict the doctrine, but, in fact, confirmed it.
It is no wonder, then, that those who deny the existence of purgatory tend to touch upon only briefly the history of the belief. They prefer to claim that the Bible speaks only of heaven and hell. Wrong. It speaks plainly of a third condition, commonly called the limbo of the Fathers, where the just who had died before the redemption were waiting for heaven to be opened to them. After his death and before his resurrection, Christ visited those experiencing the limbo of the Fathers and preached to them the good news that heaven would now be opened to them (1 Pet. 3:19). These people thus were not in heaven, but neither were they experiencing the torments of hell.
Sometimes I get the question in my CCD class, "Why did Jesus descend into Hell" as is stated in the Apostle's Creed? More accurately, "Jesus descended to the dead," that is, Sheol (in Hebrew), the "place of the dead" in the Old Testament where people went after they died, both the just and the unjust, separated by an abyss--the section for the unjust being 'Gehenna' where they were suffering by fire. (See the parable of Lazarus and the rich man in Lk 16:19-31). The sin of Adam and Eve closed the gates of Heaven, and the souls of the just who had died before the Christ came waited for their redeemer in this 'place of the dead' or temporary quarters in scripture.
Catholic Answers goes on:
Some have speculated that the limbo of the Fathers is the same as purgatory. This may or may not be the case. However, even if the limbo of the Fathers is not purgatory, its existence shows that a temporary, intermediate state is not contrary to Scripture. Look at it this way. If the limbo of the Fathers was purgatory, then this one verse directly teaches the existence of purgatory. If the limbo of the Fathers was a different temporary state, then the Bible at least says such a state can exist. It proves there can be more than just heaven and hell. Likewise, Scripture teaches that purgatory exists, even if it doesn’t use that word and even if 1 Peter 3:19 refers to a place other than purgatory.
What is the correct approach to have when someone we love dies? We trust in God's mercy and pray for them, for the repose of their soul should they be in purgatory. When I think about my own life, I am no saint, and will need all the prayers I can get after I die. I do not want people 'celebrating my life' at my funeral or telling stories or . I want them on their knees pleading with God to release my soul, to purify me, offering prayers on my behalf, that I may be with Him sooner. Remember--purgatory is not a doomed place. We can rejoice that we are destined for Heaven even in that state after the "last penny is paid" (Mt 5:26; cf Lk 12:59)
Christ refers to the sinner who "will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come" (Matt. 12:32), suggesting that one can be freed after death of the consequences of one’s sins. Similarly, Paul tells us that, when we are judged, each man’s work will be tried. And what happens if a righteous man’s work fails the test? "He will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire" (1 Cor 3:15). Now this loss, this penalty, can’t refer to consignment to hell, since no one is saved there; and heaven can’t be meant, since there is no suffering ("fire") there. The Catholic doctrine of purgatory alone explains this passage.
Then, of course, there is the Bible’s approval of prayers for the dead: "In doing this he acted in a very excellent and noble way, inasmuch as he had the resurrection of the dead in view; for if he were not expecting the dead to rise again, it would have been useless and foolish to pray for them in death. But if he did this with a view to the splendid reward that awaits those who had gone to rest in godliness, it was a holy and pious thought. Thus he made atonement for the dead that they might be freed from this sin" (2 Macc. 12:43–45). Prayers are not needed by those in heaven, and no one can help those in hell. That means some people must be in a third condition, at least temporarily. This verse so clearly illustrates the existence of purgatory that, at the time of the Reformation, Protestants had to cut the books of the Maccabees out of their Bibles in order to avoid accepting the doctrine.
Prayers for the dead and the consequent doctrine of purgatory have been part of the true religion since before the time of Christ. Not only can we show it was practiced by the Jews of the time of the Maccabees, but it has even been retained by Orthodox Jews today, who recite a prayer known as the Mourner’s Kaddish for eleven months after the death of a loved one so that the loved one may be purified. It was not the Catholic Church that added the doctrine of purgatory. Rather, any change in the original teaching has taken place in the Protestant churches, which rejected a doctrine that had always been believed by Jews and Christians.
Trust me when I say it is more prudent for us to make amends, to repent and do penance, offer reparations to those we have sinned against, in this life than in the next. Those who are considered saints have indeed gone straight to Heaven after death for lives of heroic faith and works. They took seriously their mission on earth, trusted in God's mercy and forgiveness and power, and were good and faithful servants (Mt 25:21, 23) who have been rewarded for their obedience with eternal life. It is something we should all aspire to model. If we miss the mark, though, God in his great mercy offers those who die in his friendship yet who are still 'unclean' and not yet ready to meet him, this period of purification before the great banquet feast, so that they may come clothed in all white and freed from every impurity.
I know this is a hard pill for non-Catholic Christians to swallow, and many will not believe still because it does not square with a sola-scriptura theology. But it has been the tradition of the Christian church from the beginning until the time of the reformation. What if it is true?
So, please, pray for me now, that I may know my hidden sins and repent of them in this life. That I may make amends for the wrongs I have done, in this life. And should I die tomorrow, keep the flowers and eulogies and instead offer a mass, prayers and fasting, for my soul, that my most-probable stay in purgatory may be short and I might be with my Savior sooner than later. Dressed appropriately.
"Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way of everlasting."
(Ps 139:22-23)
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