Holy Sacrament of Penance

A Merciful God instituted the Holy Sacrament of Penance which Catholic frequently call “Confession”.

Nevertheless, for those who are sincere, who do confess their sins in the Sacrament of Penance, receive Sacramental Absolution, and perform the Penance the Confessor gives them, can in fact avoid Purgatory IF they make use of the means God has so generously given to all Catholics.  In other words, the good news is that the means to avoid Purgatory are withing the reach of every ordinary Catholic!

May the Eucharistic and Most Sacred Heart of Jesus Bless them and the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary help them.

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Chapter 2

How Can We Avoid Purgatory?

The reason why some souls have to pass through Purgatory after death is that they have committed venial sins for which they have not received Absolution in the Sacrament of Penance, and also they have not made satisfaction for the temporal punishment due to at least some of their sins, even those sins they have already confessed.

Each sin must be expiated, whether in this life or the next life! No one with even the slightest shadow of sin or of any remaining temporal punishment due to sin, can enter Heaven which is totally pure wherein is the all-holy presence of God.

The graver one’s venial sins, the more frequent the venial sins, the longer will be the period of expiation and the more intense will be the pain.

One must face the facts, either now or later, that it is not God’s fault, nor even God’s wish, that anyone would go to Purgatory! On the contrary, the fault is all our own.

We have sinned and have not made satisfaction.

Even after we commit sin, Almighty God, in His infinite goodness and Divine Mercy, places at our disposal many easy and efficacious means by which we may considerably lessen our term of expiation, or even entirely cancel it, and thus go straight to Heaven when we die.

For your practical resolutions,  make this your # 1 goal - to go straight to Heaven when you die.

Sad to say, too many Catholics, with an irrationally incomprehensible rashness, neglect these means and so have to pay their debts in the dreadful prison called “Purgatory”.

What are some of the primary means by which we can avoid Purgatory, or at the very least, lessen its severity and duration.

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Saint Theresa's
"Little Way" of Sanctity
 

Little Acts of Supererogation

Is it possible to ever overcome every sin in advance and thus rarely, if ever, sin?  Yes!

Here is a great “secret” of some of the Saints which is really an easy, teeny, tiny act, the immense value of which most people probably do not realize?  What follows is only ten paragraphs long, but it can not only help you to shorten your time in Purgatory, but possibly even help you to totally avoid Purgatory so you can in fact go straight to Heaven when you die!

You can EASILY (anyone can do it!) become and remain one of the handful of God’s FAVORITES! How do you do this?  By overcoming all temptations in advance by acts of supererogation!  This is explained in detail by the following source:

Another Weighty Reason for Setting Great Store by Little Things

1.  Another considerable reason why we should make account of little things is that, if we are careless and negligent in little things and take small heed thereof, it is to be feared that God will refuse us His particular and special aids and graces which we stand in need of to resist temptations and not fall into sin and to obtain the virtue and perfection which we desire; and so we come to great harm.

2.    The better to understand this, we must presuppose a very good piece of theology taught us by Saint Paul when writing to the Corinthians--that God our Lord never refused to anyone that supernatural assistance and succor whereby, if he will, he will not be overcome by temptation but be able to resist and come out victorious.  God is faithful, Who will not permit you to be tempted above your strength, but will give you such aid in temptation as that you may be able to suffer it with advantage (I Cor. 10:13).  God is faithful, say the Apostle; you may rest assured that He will not permit you to be tempted more than you are able to bear; and if He adds more trials and there come greater temptations, He will also add more succor and bounty that you may be able to come out of them, not only without loss, but with much profit and increase of good.  But there is another aid and succor of God more special and particular.  Man could resist and overcome temptation without this special aid if he availed himself as he ought of the first supernatural assistance, which is more general.  But, oftentimes, with that first aid man will not resist temptation unless God give him that other aid more particular and special.  Not that he could not, but that he will not; for if he willed, he might well resist with that first aid, since it is sufficient for the purpose if he would make the use of it that he ought.  In that case his falling and being overcome by temptation will be his own fault, since it will be by his own will.  And if God gave him then that other special assistance, he would not fall.

3.    But to come to our point.  This second aid and special superabundant and efficacious succor is not given by God to all, nor on all occasions, since it is a liberality and a most particular grace of His own bestowal; and so God will give it to whom He pleases; He will give it to those who have been liberal with Him.  So the prophet says:  With the holy, Lord, Thou wilt be holy; and with the benign, benign; and with the liberal and sincere, Thou wilt be sincere and liberal; and with him that shall not be such, Thou wilt pay him in the same coin (Psalm 17:26-27).  This is what our Father puts in his Rules:  “The closer one shall bind himself to God our Lord, and the more liberal he shall show himself to His Divine Majesty, the more liberal he will find God to him; and the better shall he be disposed to receive every day greater graces and spiritual gifts.”  This is the doctrine of Saint Gregory nαzιanzen and other saints.

4.    What it is to be liberal to God may be well understood from what it is to be liberal to men.  In this world to be liberal to another is to give him, not his due and bonded right, but more than his due and bonded right.  That is liberality; the other is not liberality, but justice and obligation.  Now in the same manner, he who is very careful and diligent to please God, not only in matters of obligation, but also in those of supererogation and perfection, and not only in greater, but also in lesser things, he is liberal to God.  Now to them that are thus liberal, God also is very liberal.  These are God’s favorites to whom He shows His bounties; to these He gives not only those general aids which are sufficient to resist and overcome temptations, but also those special and superabundant and efficacious aids wherewith they will nowise fall when they are tempted.

5.    But if you are not liberal to God, how can you expect God to be liberal to you?  If you are niggardly with God, you deserve that God should be niggardly with you.  If you are so mean and close as to go sounding and measuring as with rule and compass--“Am I bound or not bound?  Am I bound under sin or not bound under sin?  Does it amount to a mortal sin or to no more than a venial?” --all this is being niggardly with God, since you want to give Him no more than you are obliged, and even in that possibly you fail.  God then will be niggardly with you and give you no more than He is obliged by His word; He will give you those general and necessary aids which He gives to all, which are enough and sufficient to enable you to resist temptations and not fall in them; but you will have much reason to fear that He will not give you that special superabundant and efficacious aid which He is wont to give to such as are liberal to Him; and so you will come to be vanquished by temptation and fall into sin.

6.    This is what theologians and saints commonly say, that one sin is often the punishment of another sin.  That is to be understood in this way, that by the first sin a man loses, as punishment of his sin, all claim to that special and particular aid of God, and renders himself unworthy of it; and so he comes to fall into a second sin.  They say the same of venial sins, and further of faults and negligences and general carelessness of life; for this also they say that a man may lose all claim and render himself unworthy of that special and efficacious assistance of God with which he will persevere and actually overcome temptation, and without which he will be overcome and fall into sin.  So some saints explain the words of the Wise Man:  He that despiseth small things, shall fall little by little (Ecclus. 19:1).  By despising small things and making little account of them one comes to render oneself unworthy of that special assistance of God, and so one comes to fall into great faults.  In like manner is to be understood the saying of the Apocalypse (3:16):  Because thou art tepid, I will begin to vomit thee out of my mouth.  God has not yet vomited and thrown up entirely the tepid man, but He has begun to vomit and throw him up because by this negligence in which he lives, and these faults which he commits with advertence and of set purpose, he goes the way to make himself undeserving of that special and efficacious aid without which he will fall; and God will end by vomiting and throwing him up.

7.    Let us consider how much reason we have to fear lest we should lose all claim and render ourselves unworthy of this special aid of God through our tepidity and sloth.  How often do we see ourselves assailed with temptations and in great danger, and many times we find ourselves in doubt--“Did I dwell on it or not?  Did I consent or not?  Did it amount to a sin or not?”  Oh, how well it would be worth our while for those critical moments to have been liberal to God and so made ourselves worthy of that special and liberal aid of grace whereby we should be quite secure of always keeping our footing, and without which we shall be in great danger and possibly be overcome!

8.    Saint Chrysostom assigns this means as one of the chief that we have for overcoming temptations.  Speaking of the devil, our enemy, and of the continual war that he wages against us, he says:  “You know well, my brethren, that we have in the devil a perpetual enemy who is always making war upon us, who never sleeps nor relaxes his efforts:  you can have no truce with that cruel monster.  So it is necessary always to be very wide-awake and very careful and watchful not to be overcome by him.”  How, then, shall we stand on our guard and prepare ourselves well not to be overcome, but always to get the better of this traitor and keep him under?  Do you know how?  Saint Chrysostom says:  “The only means to overcome him is to have gained beforehand this special assistance of God by our good life in the past.  In this way we shall be always victorious, and in no other.”  Notice the expression, “in no other”.  Saint Basil makes the same observation in these words:  “He who wishes to be helped by the Lord never ceases doing what lies with him to do.  He who does this is never left destitute of the divine assistance;”  wherefore, he concludes:  “We must make it our effort that our conscience shall not reproach us in anything.”  A sound conclusion is that we must be very careful in our spiritual exercises and in all our works to be worthy of this special aid from heaven.

9.    Hence it will be seen how important it is to make much account of small things--if we can call those things small which bring us in so much good or so much harm.  He who feareth God, neglecteth nothing (Eccles.  7:19), because he knows full well that out of small things neglected one comes little by little to fail in greater; and he fears that, if he ceases to be liberal with God in these things, God will cease to be liberal with him.

10.    In conclusion I say that this matter is so important, and we should make so much account of it, that we may take it as a general rule that, so long as a man makes much of little and minute things, all will go well, and the Lord will befriend him; and on the contrary, when he ceases to reckon much of little and minute things, he will incur great danger, because it is in this way that all evil enters into a religious.  This Jesus Christ gives us to understand, saying:  He that is faithful in what is little, will be faithful also in what is much; and he that is unfaithful and evil in what is little, will be the like in what is much  (Luke 16:10).  And therefore when one wishes to see how one is getting on in spiritual progress--and it is reasonable that we should often make reflection thereupon--let him examine himself by this and see whether he makes account of little things or whether he is getting into free and easy ways by taking small heed of them; and if he sees that now he does not trouble himself about small matters, nor does his conscience reproach him thereon as it used to do, let him look for a remedy with all care.  The devil, says Saint Basil, when he sees that he cannot drive us out of religion, applies all his powers to persuade us not to give ourselves to perfection, and not to make account of small matters, deceiving us by a false assurance that one does not lose God for that.  But we, on the contrary, should make it our effort that as he cannot drive us out of religion, so neither shall he hinder our perfection; but we will apply ourselves thereto with all our strength, setting much store by little and minute things.  (Source:  Father Alphonsus Rodriguez, S.J., a.k.a. Alonso Rodriguez, S.J. [b. at Valladolid, Spain, in 1526 A.D. - d. at Seville, Spain on Sunday, February 21, 1616 A.D.], “Practice of Perfection and Christian Virtues,”  Newly Translated from the Original Spanish by  Joseph Rickaby, S.J., In Three Volumes, Volume  I, Chapter  X; emphasis added).

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The Second Means: Penance

The Second Means of avoiding Purgatory is to satisfy for our sins in this life by doing penance. "Do penance or you shall all likewise perish" Do penance, or you will burn long years in Purgatory, is a fact rom which there is no getting away.

This is a terrifying thought and one that makes the bravest man shudder. Which of us does not tremble when he thinks of those who have been burnt to death in a slow fire? What fear would not be ours if we had to face a similar death? Yet their suffering was of relatively short duration. The incomparably fiercer fire of Purgatory, which we may have to face, may last 20, or 50 or 100 years, or even more?!

Many people have such a horror of penance that they never even dream of practicing it. It is like the fear that children have of ghosts, a very great but a very unfounded fear. Their idea is that penance is something awful They think perhaps of the severe penances of the great Saints and of course are afraid to attempt anything of a like kind.

God does not ask us, as a rule, to do what is heroic. When He does, He gives us the special Grace necessary, called “Heroic Grace” or “Heroic Virtue”.  He asks each one to do a little. If we are afraid of doing much, and it is only natural that some should be, let us do at least a little. No one but a coward is afraid to do a little, especially if he gets much in exchange.

The easy road to Heaven of Saint Theresa, the Little Flower, is to do many little things, the little Acts of Supererogation you read about in the previous chapter. God was infinitely pleased with the widow's mite; He will be equally pleased with our little penances.

As a result of little mortifications, we can deliver ourselves from the awful fires of Purgatory and amass rich merits for Heaven. To go into the matter further, there is not much difficulty about mortification or penance, notwithstanding the absurd fear that people have of it.

Penance is not only easy, it is useful and necessary, and it will bring us very great happiness. Not to do penance is the greatest penance of all. As a matter of fact, every man of the world naturally, spontaneously mortifies himself. The first principle, for instance, of politeness and good breeding is to sacrifice our whims and tastes for the sake of others. The selfish man is a boor; the generous man is the idol of all, especially if he is also humble and meek.

Again, the only way of securing good health is to eschew the most appetizing viands when they do us harm and to make use of plain foods when they do us good. Overeating is one of the causes of illness and sometimes of a premature death.

The secret of success is strenuous, methodical, regular work. Now generosity, self-denial, method, regularity are other forms of very genuine but practical mortification. Yet no man can do much without them. To insist on our own likes and dislikes, to do only as we please, is to lead a life bristling with difficulties, in which every duty is a burden, every good act an effort and a labor.

Boy scouts and girl scouts are bound to do a kind act every day, even though it costs them a big effort. Catholics can do more than this, e.g. daily acts of self-restraint, of patience with others, of kindness to others, the exact fulfilment of duty are splendid penances and a great aid to happiness.

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The Most Perfect Penance

But the most perfect penance of all is to unite and conform your finite will to the infinite Holy Will of God.  It is the most perfect penance because it is void of all pride.  Pride can sneak in when one performs other kinds of penance, no matter how big or small they are.  But the penance of uniting and conforming one’s will to God’s Holy Will is not only an act of the Virtues of Humility and Meekness, but an exercise of Wisdom, one of the Gifts of the Holy Ghost.

In what does the sanctification and spiritual perfection of a person consist?  Saint Francis DeSales [b. at Thorens, in the Duchy of Savoy, 21 August 21, 1567 A.D. - d. at Lyons, France on December 28, 1622 A.D.], Bishop of Geneva, Doctor of the Roman Catholic Church,. says that “some place it in austerity, others in giving to a charity, others in frequenting the Sacraments, others in prayer.  But for my part, I know of no other perfection than loving God with all one's heart.  Without this love all of the virtues are only a heap of stones.”

In the same way that virtue is ennobled and perfected by the love of God, “so likewise”, says Rodriguez, following Saint John Chrysostom, “the highest, purest and most excellent part of this love is absolute conformity to the Divine Will and having in all things no other will but God’s.”

“Whoever makes a habit of prayer should think only of doing everything to conform his will to God’s.  Be assured that In this conformity consists the highest perfection we can attain and those who practice it with the greatest care will be favored by God's greatest Gifts and will make the quickest progress in the interior [Spiritual] life.  Do not imagine there are other secrets.  All our good consists in this”  (Saint Teresa of Avila, Teresa Sanchez Cepeda Davila y Ahumada [b. at Avila, Old Castile, Spain on Sunday, March 28, 1515 A.D. - d. at Alba de Tormes on Monday, October 4, 1582 A.D.]; emphasis added).

Blessed Stephanie of Soncino, a Dominican Nun, was taken in spirit to Heaven one day where she saw among the Seraphim several persons she had known before their deaths.  Having asked why these souls were raised to such a high degree of glory, she was told that it was because of the conformity and perfect union of their will with God's Holy Will while they lived on earth.

Therefore, conformity and uniformity to the Divine Will shall raise one while on earth to the highest degree of Grace and on it is founded the highest perfection anyone can attain in this life.  Whoever practices entire and complete submission to God's Holy Will lays up inestimable treasures at every moment and amasses more riches in a few days than others are able to acquire in many years and with great labor and horrendously severe corporal penances.  This means that a person must remain indifferent to good fortune or to adversity by accepting all of it from the Hand of God without questioning; not to ask for things to be done as we would like them to be, but rather as God wishes.

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These prayers from St. Jude's are beautiful and well worth practicing.   One intention consistently comes up and that is probably the most important.  It is 'to do the will of the Father'.    Unfortunately, it is hard for us to know for certain that everything we actually do, and every prayer we say, is according to the will of the Father.

This is what worried the saints to the degree that they realised they would never be certain they were doing God's will so they prayed about it and were given the grace of the dark night of the soul.   Once the initiation process of that purgation was over (could last for years according to their generosity/depth of their desire) the purgation kept pace with their everyday lives minute by minute.

They then realised what a great grace it was.  The Holy Spirit's gift of the Fear of God became their constant companion. working in union with the other gifts of the Holy Spirit.  'Taking them into a cloud' visiting them when they did not know what to do or what to pray in their particular situation, at that particular time, and in accordance with to their state in life.  This was a day by day, minute by minute lived experience.    Thus God would enlighten them by continuing the purgation of their state of inherited sin more and more.  They began to fast in order to invite the mercy of the Gift of Fear because then, they knew what to do, or pray. They knew for certain that God was working through them because of the results (personal holiness or external when in relation to another person or more especially during martyrdom.

If they committed deliberate personal sins, they would go to Confession.  But the collaboration with the grace of purgation on earth delivered them more and more from their state of sin...thus rendering them incapable of sin = Charity.  

It is this deliverance from our state of sin that God's mercy, either here or in Purgatory after death, must be endured by each and every one of us.

Praying as advised on St. Jude's website helps us to be better prepared to go through the purgation period here or after death, or during the process of dying when we lose all our possessions and suffer the grief of parting from loved ones.

God only grants this grace to those who truly long for it.  He always works with the willing collaboration of the soul - going only at their pace.

For your practical resolutions, the following is suggested:

1) Take the sufferings God sends you and make of them “opportunities” to partially expiate your own sins, faults, and imperfections, and apply the merits of your sufferings to the Poor, Suffering Souls in Purgatory who are too often ignored or forgotten in this busy world in which we live today for indeed, the world is too much with most of us!

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Poche,

Thanks to all the literature you posted on this thread.

For those who can make it to Rome, I recommend a visit to the Museum of the Holy Souls in Purgatory. Tradition in Action has good articles about it. What I saw there removes all doubts.



It won't take long to see everything, it is really just one small room inside the Church of the Sacred Heart. But it is one of those little-known places that make for an interesting visit and many visitors to the Eternal City have never even heard of it.

Among the items on display is the nightcap of a man who discovered his deceased wife's hand prints on it asking him to pray for her.

Another amazing item is a book of belonging to a woman whose mother-in-law reportedly appeared to her and asked for two masses in her honor. After the wish was fulfilled, her hand print was found on the book as a message of thanksgiving.

Other exhibits include a book with a hand print on it from a deceased priest and many other interesting items.  

It is only about 10 minutes from the Vatican, and is of interest to believers and even to non-believers.

The museum came about through the activities of a French missionary priest, Father Jouet. There was a painting of Our Lady of the Rosary and it caught fire due to the candles that surrounded it. Bystanders claimed to see the face of a man in the burning walls of the altar. Father Jouet was convinced that this was a message from a soul whose body was buried in the area and decided to build a church in that place to pay tribute to the souls in purgatory.

The musem is located at Lungotevere Prati, 12 in Rome. The phone is:+39 06 6880 6517.  Admission is free, but donations are accepted. There may or may not be someone there to guide you.  

The museum is open whenever the Church is: from 9:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. and from 5:00 p.m to 7:00 p.m.