TREATISE ON PURGATORY by St. Catherine of Genoa

CHAPTER IV

STATE OF THE SOULS THAT ARE IN HELL, AND THE DIFFERENCE THERE IS BETWEEN THEM AND THOSE IN PURGATORY.
REFLECTIONS OF THE SAINT UPON THOSE WHO NEGLECT THEIR SALVATION.

From what has been said, it is clear that the guilt of sin consists in the perverse opposition of the will to the will of God, and that so long as the will continues thus evilly perverse the guilt will continue. For those, then, in hell, who have departed this life with an evil will, there is no remission of sin, neither can be, because there can be no more change of will. In passing out of this life the soul is fixed for good or evil according to its deliberate purpose at the time; as is written, “Where shall I find thee (that is, at the hour of death, with a will either to sin or sorry for sin and penitent), there will I judge thee:” and this judgment is final; because after death the will can never again be free, but must remain fixed in the condition in which it was found at the moment of death. The souls in hell having been found at the moment of death with a will to sin, have with them an infinite degree of guilt; and the punishment they suffer, though less than they deserve, is yet, so far as it exists, endless. But the souls in purgatory have only the punishment for sin, and not its guilt; for the guilt was effaced at the moment of death, in that they were found then deploring their sins and penitent for having offended the Divine Goodness; so their punishment has a limit, and goes on diminishing in duration, as has been said.

O misery above every misery! and so much the greater because men in their blindness consider it so little.

The punishment of the damned is not, indeed, infinite in amount; for the sweet goodness of God sheds the rays of His mercy even in hell. A man who has died in mortal sin deserves a punishment infinite in pain and infinite in duration; but God in His mercy has made it infinite only in duration, and has limited the amount of pain. He might most justly have given them a far greater punishment than He has.

O how perilous is a sin committed through malice! for hardly does a man repent of it ; and not repenting, his guilt remains, and will remain, so long as there is any affection for the sin committed, or any purpose of committing it afresh.

Reflection

The fool hath said in his heart: There is no God, They are corrupt, and are become abominable in their ways: there is none that doth good, no not one. (Psa 13:1) Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy face? If I ascend into heaven, thou art there: if I descend into hell, thou art present. And I said: Perhaps darkness shall cover me: and night shall be my light in my pleasures. But darkness shall not be dark to thee, and night shall be light as day: the darkness thereof, and the light thereof are alike to thee (Psa 138:7-8, 11-12).

A wicked soul is a soul that, in sin, justifies herself. This soul is the one that seeks to act as if there was no God, which is a lie that she tells herself. For all of creation foretells that the goodness of the Lord, and that there is a God is written upon the human heart. Yet, this wicked soul acts as if she can do as she pleases, can hide from God, and that the darkness can be a shield from His countenance. 

Further still, this wicked soul will, when she finds that God is in the heights or in the depths to which she has fled and that the darkness flees in the presence of He who is Light, shall continue on in her madness and will, to His Face, remain in her pleasures and her sins. When questioned, she denies her sinful actions, when offered a path of mercy, she brushes back the outstretched hand, when sentence is passed, she cries foul and rejects the sentence because she knows better.

And yet, As I live, saith the Lord God, I desire not the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way, and live. Turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways: and why will you die (Eze 33:11)? The Lord does not simply will naked justice, but dispenses justice so that the wicked, amongst which we must count ourselves, might repent and turn from their ways and accept His ways. 

Here in is the great mystery of Purgatory, that it is the place where the wicked in act, but not in will, find the mercy that they flirted with all their earthly lives but never perfectly embraced. They are guilty but by accepting mercy are not guilty, for He paid the price for them; they only have to accept the painful “punishment” of being configured to Him.

Contemplation

Consider for a moment: The infinite unending finitude of the punishment of the damned. It is unending in that they will never see God, the object which their soul longs for with unending pain, not of remorse but with a sort of envious grief. It is finite in that this punishment is less than what is deserved in justice, but also in the sense that the soul is truncated in that it will never achieve her desired supernatural end but is also diminished and unable to achieve a natural end.

Question: God’s mercy is what saves us, not our own actions, but we are saved via the faithful acceptance of this mercy which is accomplished in charity. Self-justification is absolutely toxic to this gossamer thread of salvation, whereas humility actualizes it. In what ways can we become more humble in accepting His mercy?

~ PPP