Enough is enough!  I’m tired of seeing Catholic bashing letters in the Voice of the People like A. S.’s in the December 30^th edition of the Pacific Daily News.  I feel that I must respond.

 

Mr. S. ridicules the Catholic practice of praying for the dead.  Catholics pray for the faithful departed because they believe that God purifies them after death to prepare them for heaven.  This cleansing or purification is called “Purgatory”.  St. Paul is most explicit in describing this purifying fire when he describes a person being saved, “but only as through fire” (I Corinthians 3:15).

 

Since the saved are part of the Body of Christ before they die, they are part of the Body of Christ after they die (I Corinthians. 12:12-26).  So we can pray for them while they are being purified, just as we can for any other member of the Body of Christ.

 

Catholics certainly believe that the blood of Jesus cleanses the saved from all sin (1 John 1:7).  But this cleansing consists of more than just forgiveness.  We must be made truly holy, for we must have “that holiness without which no one will see the Lord” (Hebrews 12:14).  Catholics believe that this growth in holiness or purification process must start in this life, but that God finishes His work in the saved after death.     

 

For Catholics, “God is a consuming fire” (Hebrews 12:29) and we can pray for our brothers and sisters who are being purified by that fire as they are being made ready for Heaven after death.