Straight to Heaven!?

I am writing again touching upon purgatory as I have in my previous two articles. I was not planning on doing so. However, today I attended a memorial for a nice woman, who I will call Rhonda (not her real name) whom I worked with for about 10 years. The Pastor spoke of her being in heaven. I pray that she is, and we do have hope of that, but we do not know. It is likely that she is suffering the pains (and joy, yes joy) of being in purgatory. Not a single one of us is perfect, we all have the stain of at least venial sin.

The faith tradition of this Pastor (as in many) assumes if a person has faith, that is their ticket to heaven. In our tradition we believe as did the Jews shortly before the time of Jesus that the dead need our prayers. We read in 2 Maccabees 12:41-43:

42 and they turned to prayer, beseeching that the sin which had been committed might be wholly blotted out. And the noble Judas exhorted the people to keep themselves free from sin, for they had seen with their own eyes what had happened because of the sin of those who had fallen. 43 He also took up a collection, man by man, to the amount of two thousand drachmas of silver, and sent it to Jerusalem to provide for a sin offering. In doing this he acted very well and honorably, taking account of the resurrection.

This is prayers for the dead, these souls are in the place we call purgatory. The great theologian C.S. Lewis (who was not Catholic by the way) is quoted as saying:

Our souls demand Purgatory, don't they? Would it not break the heart if God said to us, 'It is true, my son, that your breath smells and your rags drip with mud and slime, but we are charitable here and no one will upbraid you with these things, nor draw away from you. Enter into the joy'? Should we not reply, 'With submission, sir, and if there is no objection, I'd rather be cleaned first.' 'It may hurt, you know' - 'Even so, sir.'

It does a disservice to Rhonda to no longer pray for her. She very likely needs them. Upon her passing I prayed a rosary for her, but I wish they would have had a rosary service for her. That just does not happen in the church she attended.

Father Duolingo Ruotolo in his book: The Afterlife Purgatory and Heaven Explained says “the soul in the state of grace is a traveler that has reached the end of its life on earth, but because of it's need for purification, it is granted to be a traveler still in order to cleanse itself in a painful pilgrimage of love.”

According to Father Duolingo the soul in a state of grace still requires purification. This is sound Catholic doctrine. The Catechism of the Catholic Church says in Paragraph 1030:

All who die in God's grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven.

Revelation 21:27 speaking of Heaven says:

“But nothing unclean shall enter it”

At this point I make an appeal to pray for your deceased loved ones and friends. Just as we pray for them while here on earth, with the desire of their salvation, let us not cease those prayers. One day when we are in the same need we will greatly appreciate them.