People who are going through ordeals, including non-believers, claim they are serving their purgatory on earth. Are there any grounds to such a belief? In other words, can we serve our purgatory during this life? Don Paul Denizot, interviewed for the program Sanctuaires normands on RCF, clarifies the matter.
What is called ‘purgatory’ is a cleansing stage after death – however it may begin in our lives here below. Each crisis or challenge is a milestone which may help us to get purified, to grow and mature. Some ordeals are harder than others, like illnesses for example. What makes them a kind of purgatory is that they are an opportunity to experience different purification stages.
Suffering as a path towards love
In suffering, the criterium is not intensity but the ability to learn to love better. I have in mind some very self-reliant people for whom being ill has been a mean of learning to become dependant, of asking for help and thanking their caregivers. They experience a purification of love.
Which attitude does this involve from the soul?
This is not an easy subject because it is very mysterious. In people experiencing hardships, I have indeed seen some trust and, above all, they were determined to love. Which does not mean they were free of incomprehension or rebellion, or did not question their plight. But I did meet some individuals who were experiencing their disease with their heart wide open, not just as survivors.
When you are in Heaven, the weight of your suffering will hardly matter, because suffering is absurd and no one wants it. What the Lord will be looking at is how much you have loved. In other words, to what extent you will have learnt to love and how wide your heart will be open.
Isn’t suffering on earth worse than purgatory?
That’s possble because the souls in purgatory know they are saved and that they will experience joy. It is a certaintly and a matter of course. Whereas for us here below, faith does bring certainty although it is not a matter of course and, at times, we are faced to God’s silence.
Yet, some encounters made me realize in a rather mysterious way that even when you are in the thick of a challenging situation, you can cooperate to love, and going through hardships generates a lot of dignity. Let’s think, for instance, of some people who have been hardly afflicted and are still radiant.
Can we help someone going through purgatory on earth?
It is difficult because you cannot suffer in lieu of that person. What they are experiencing cannot be shared and sometimes you cannot suppress their suffering. On the other hand, we can offer our presence and stand by the person as they are suffering, like the Blessed Mother at the foot of the cross. She did not save the world, she did not die with her son. She just stood there, offering all her love to her son. She was a participant to his Resurrection. So we can be like her, staying close, allowing people to share their suffering and listening to them, and by expressing our affection.
Saint Thomas More used to pray God to “let him joyfully enjoy his purgatory”. Can purgatory be described as ‘joyful’?
Purgatory is made of all the ordeals we are subjected to, from the smallest frustrations (the upset of daily life) to the greatest annoyances (including long-term illnesses, bereavements, etc.). It also includes every time when our own will is crushed and forced to accept things as they are. This is alreday a purification. We can practice thankfulness and offering our annoyances to help us go through ordeals joyfully. This is a grace we should request.
Who can help us when we are suffering on earth?
When we are suffering on earth, we can remember that we are not alone: Christ is with us, in our suffering. Doing so is an act of faith, even though it is not obvious. But Christ is with us.
In the communion of saints, the saints in Heaven intercede for us and we are in the Blessed Mother’s heart. Here below, at each Mass, the Church prays for those who suffer. You are never alone when you suffer.
