Most people go through life focusing only on the fact that God is merciful, kind, and helpful, and they don’t want to think about the punishment they deserve for their sins.  Well, they’d better change and think deeply about the very real punishments in Purgatory, for if they understood the real pain of fire, they would think twice and make more of an effort to avoid sin.  No one is going to “sneak into” Heaven.  God is at the door.  And He is all-just.

 

To many, Our Lord’s command, “Deny thyself, take up thy cross and follow Me”, (Matthew 16:24)  seems hard; but it would be much harder to hear that final word: “Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire.”  (Matthew 25:41).  This phrase “everlasting fire” refers to the fires to hell.  But now let us consider the fires of Purgatory. 

 

Here is a crucial reminder from Fr. Paul O’Sullivan:

 

The fire of Purgatory is the same terrible fire as the fire of Hell.  We may be kept in this awful fire for many years for a deliberate venial sin.  God could never punish us too severely.  He does not send us to Purgatory because He is angry with us, but because the malice of a deliberate venial sin is simply awful – mortal sin much more so.[1]

 

Here is the wholesome teaching of My Catholic Faith:

 

St. Augustine believed that the sufferings of the poor souls are greater than the sufferings of all the martyrs.  St. Thomas believed the least pain there is greater than the greatest on earth.  The greatness and the duration of a soul’s sufferings in Purgatory vary according to the gravity of the sins committed.  One who has lived a long life of sin, but is saved from hell only by a deathbed repentance, will stay in the purging fires of Purgatory longer, and suffer there more intensely than a child, who has committed only the venial sins of an ordinary child.[2]

 

It is important that one understands the real pain of the fires of Purgatory.  That understanding will greatly help to avoid all sin.   Avoiding all sin is possible even for those who are without (most of) the Sacraments – as faithful and informed Catholics currently are in all of those places in the world where the Sacraments are not available without compromise.  God knows what we need and provides it.

 

There is a way to begin to understand and to feel the pain which is a little like Purgatory’s fire.  (Obviously, be very careful not to injure yourself.)  Light a candle and hold your hand about seven inches above the flame and feel the heat.  Then lower your hand little-by-little until you understand much better the real pain of fire which is suffered by those persons in Purgatory.  Then reflect that such suffering in Purgatorial fire could last for years. 

 

Think also, that God created the fires on earth to serve and help man.  By contrast, God created the fires of Purgatory to inflict much more pain than the fires on earth because He created those fires to punish man.

 

Now, with your new understanding of what sinners suffer in Purgatory, let us begin by promising God that we will sin no more.

 

We know we must be a saint in order to get to heaven.  So let us love God, hate sin, pray devoutly and often, and we will be “ordinary saints” who will spend all eternity in the complete happiness of heaven.