An Interview on Purgatory with Francisco Romero-Carrasquillo, professor of philosophy & author of Ite ad Thomam
The Church teaches that when the world ends, there will only be heaven and hell. What happens to the souls that live until the end of the world, if they are not yet worthy to witness the Beatific Vision, nor are deserving of eternal damnation? What happens to Purgatory at the end of time?
"Sacred Tradition has always affirmed that, in the end, only Heaven and Hell will remain. Consequently, purgatory will cease to be. But the souls in purgatory are predestined to Heaven. In other words, after they have entered purgatory, it is impossible for them to “fall out” of purgatory. Yet, they must be fully purified to go to Heaven. Thus, they must finish their time of purification before the end of the world. St. Augustine says: “Let purification punishments be counted on only before that last and terrible judgment.”Therefore, the souls on earth that die in sanctifying grace but whose venial sins have not been forgiven or whose punishment for venial sin has not been remitted must be completely purified (perhaps immediately) before the end of the world."
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5 comments:
Your blog gives one a lot to ponder on! Thanks for visiting my blog.
One obstacle to understanding purgatory is that analysts and theologians are bound to thinking of things in earthly time. Heaven, purgatory, and hell are not driven by clock, month, moon or sun. There is, strictly speaking, no equivalent between God's time and the universe of matter. They are not in sync, so speculation about time tables are pointless when discussing heaven, hell or purgatory.
Marie6 - I honored you visited my little blog. I found yours searching for bloggers living in Malta. One of the places I very much want to visit one day.
mmajor fan - I absolutely agree with you. We humans are so bound by time that we cannot conceive of what it is to be outside of time. Purgatory, heaven, hell - all exist outside the confines of time in the eternal now. However, the mystery about purgatory is, souls are there and at some point they are done and go to heaven. We on earth have no choice but to measure this as time spent in purgatory.
Another beautiful part of this is since God exists outside of time, He hears all prayers in the NOW, so therefore we can pray for distant ancestors, our not yet conceived great grandchildren and so on. Our prayers offered NOW for generations past can indeed "shorten" their purgatory. How generous is our God!
Wise you are. That was very truly written. One of the greatest Christian acts is to pray for those who cannot pray for themselves, for either faith or time of life reasons. It's my most common nightly intention. I enjoy reading your blog!
I can't recall it very well, but wasn't Padre Pio questioned once about who he was praying for and he said it was for his grandfather's conversion long after it happened or something like that? Then he explained that God "knew" that Padre Pio would pray for his grandfather's conversion long after it happened and applied those prayers back in time because God exists outside time. Hard concept for our little souls, clouded by sin, to understand.
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