VERT Topic of the Week: Purgatory

[Note: VERT "is an online community & resource for Catholic converts, reverts and those sincerely considering converting to the Eastern Rite or Western Rite of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church." Weekly posting topics are suggested; members who wish to participate blog about that topic and link the post at VERT so that all can share. Joining VERT is simplicity itself; I highly recommend it for any "vert".]

What do you know or believe about Purgatory or have you had an experience you'd like to share?

Boy, just one mention of Purgatory and RCIA memories come flooding back. As a convert from evangelical Protestantism, this was one of the bricks over which I stumbled. Not all bricks are equal. Some are mostly sand, requiring only a touch of the truth to crumble. Others are hard-fired and not easily broken, but even these are chipped away bit by bit until there's only dust remaining.

Purgatory was a medium-hard brick for me. Call it a small cinder block.

The reason, of course, is that Protestantism teaches there's no such thing -- and no need for it, because if you're "saved" you're going straight to heaven, your ticket is already punched. I was taught that Purgatory was invented by the Catholic church to make money. (All those donations for Masses, right?) The capper, of course, was the ringing denunciation that Purgatory isn't in the Bible. So there. Sola scriptura. If it ain't there, we don't believe it. (And if it IS there and we don't like it, we explain it away; Jesus couldn't possibly have meant us to actually eat his flesh and drink his blood, it was clearly symbolic, wasn't it?)

I had already understood and accepted the need for sacramental confession and reconciliation, and in fact it made more sense to me than the breezy "once saved, always saved" -- mainly because I knew myself to be inclined to sin, as we all are. Protestantism didn't address the ongoing need for conversion/penance so long as we still breathe, but I knew the need existed; just didn't put it all together until I began seriously exploring Catholicism.

From there, it was a little easier to break the Purgatory brick. Reason alone told me that even if heaven is its ultimate destination, how can any soul enter the presence of God with the slightest attachment to even the least venial sin? Can't happen. So there must be a purgation. And if we are all one body -- the church militant, the church suffering, and the church triumphant -- we pray for one another. Including those who suffer but not without hope.

Traditional Mass: Coming (Back) Soon To A Parish Near You

I will probably say this more than once here: I love our Pope.

Loyalty and obedience are my obligations as a Catholic, of course. If someone wishes to take exception to that, since especially "obedience" is not a much-admired trait in this age, they are welcome to try. Won't change a thing. Truth is truth; finding the truth distasteful does not make it less true.

Which sort of explains, in a roundabout way, why I have a great fondness for Benedict XVI. Papa Benedict. My German Shepherd.

All I knew of him before dear John Paul II left us was his reputation as a staunch defender of Church doctrine, which made him rather unpopular with the "progressive" element in the Church. I can understand why some would expect a man who bore the weight of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith for so long to become rather grim and humorless, and in fact that's the picture the media tried to paint (after all, if a cleric is conservative he must be a grump, right?) when this white-haired eminent scholar was seen by millions during John Paul II's televised funeral Mass.

I was elated when the conclave ultimately selected him. This was no grim sourpuss, no formidable Rottweiler who stepped onto that balcony. The sweet-natured, soft-spoken pastor he always has been was visible to the world. But he is, most definitely, still the defender of the truth (all of it, not just the parts we like).

Some hoped that Benedict XVI would rein in some of the excesses and downright goofiness that have found their way into the liturgy, all "in the spirit of Vatican II" but most found nowhere in the council's documents.

It didn't take long. The official paper hasn't yet been released, but it appears he is about to take the handcuffs off the traditional Mass -- which will, I believe, eventually put the brakes on "liturgy as entertainment". Thomas Craughwell in The American Spectator:

With this document the pope is undermining the monopoly the progressives have had on parish life. For the first time in a long time Catholics who have clung to the traditional teachings of the Church and cherished the traditional liturgy will have a place they can call home.

Thanks be to God. And thank you, Papa.

The Inalienable Right To Life

Yesterday was,officially, proclaimed Sanctity of Human Life Day by President Bush. Didn't get much of a drum-roll in the mainstream press, which is presumably waiting for "balance" by filming protesters on both sides of today's March for Life in Washington, D.C. if it does anything at all.

Yes, folks, we're going to do this every year -- talk about Roe v. Wade, that is, and do everything we can to focus attention on the fact that these are uniquely created human lives we're throwing away in the name of "choice"; a monstrous evil, one my generation sowed and from which those who follow us are reaping a horrible whirlwind.

Denise Hunnell, who blogs as Catholic Matriarch, cuts to the heart of "it's my body, I have a right to choose" with one sentence from her post today:

... when does the daughter in your womb claim the rights you claim for yourself?

When, indeed.

For all who are peacefully assembling today, whether in Washington or in front of abortion clinics to pray the Rosary or elsewhere, know that many more of us stand behind you in prayer and penance.

Learn Latin? Who, Me?

Time for a little confession (not the sacramental kind, of course). Before I came home to the Catholic Church, I knew just two Latin phrases from the liturgy: Sursum corda and mea culpa.

I ran across sursum corda at a young age, when reading Marie Killilea's books about her family. This was, coincidentally, also my first exposure to things Catholic. I'm not sure how many other faith-specific details I absorbed, but I did remember that the name they gave to their family home meant "lift up your hearts".

After my conversion I started absorbing Latin here and there despite the fact that my parish masses are in the vernacular (although, happily, our masses are very much traditionalist; no liturgical dancers and such). I heard the Agnus Dei once on the radio, and was surprised at how it touched my heart; so much so that I looked up the Latin and memorized it, and now when we sing "Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world ..." there's a soft descant of "Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi ..." in my mind.

On the Internet, I'm seeing Latin everywhere among Catholics. Message forum signatures, blog titles. Whole posts, sometimes. And even if I don't yet understand it all, I like it. No, that's not quite accurate: Something within me responds to it, this ancient language of the Church. And I'm a post-Vatican II convert who has never -- yet -- been to a Tridentine mass.

My husband, who is 60-something, attended Catholic schools and was taught Latin. I must learn it in bits and pieces. But as a convert, and thus made aware of the depth and richness and constancy of the Catholic Church, I think it's just as important for me to know at least some Latin as it was to go through RCIA.

Besides, I'd like to be able to read my blogroll.

St. Fabian

I love how God takes "nobodies" and makes them "somebodies". But for a man to be an obscure layman one day and Pope the next, well, that's remarkable even among the saints.

There he was -- the future Pope St. Fabian -- among the crowds of the faithful who had come to Rome in the year 236 to witness the process of choosing a new Pope. All of a sudden, as we're told by Eusebius, a dove descended from the ceiling and landed on Fabian's head "as clear imitation of the descent of the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove upon the Savior".

Would it be too irreverent to suggest that this phenomenon blew everyone away? This, obviously, was one of the times when petitions for a sign from heaven were answered emphatically. Here is your sign, Church. (Wonder if Bill Engvall knows about this one?)

So Fabian, who was (he thought) just visiting Rome to see who its new bishop would be, ended up occupying the chair himself. We know that God gives us what we need to carry out our calling when we say "yes" to Him ... and so it was for Fabian, who shepherded the Church through a relatively peaceful time between periods of persecution and died a martyr.

Today, January 20, is Pope St. Fabian's feast day.