Wasn’t Jesus’ Suffering “Enough”? Why Do We Need Purgatory?

May the Passion of Jesus Christ be always in our hearts (Motto of the Passionist Order). 

In this article, we’ll address a common misreading of the doctrine of purgatory, one which usually comes from Protestant circles.

If we proffer the possibility that—although we die baptized and in a state of grace—our sanctification might still be incomplete and hence necessitate purgatory, this may appear to be a reduction of Christ’s Sacrifice. Basically, it could seem that we are saying that His suffering was not “enough” to achieve our salvation.

This, of course, is not at all what Catholics believe.

Christ’s Sacrifice is enough to redeem every human person and to remit the debt of all their sins. It is complete and perfect. It is of infinite value. Our earthly and purgatorial sufferings add nothing to it, nor supplement it as though it were lacking something. 

What, then, did St. Paul mean in his first letter to the Colossians? He says:

Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church…Colossians 1:24

What could possibly be lacking in Christ’s suffering?

Christ’s Sacrifice is perfect, but it still requires our full participation—and that’s what can be lacking. We are creatures with free will who can accept this Sacrifice, reject it, or accept it in an imperfect way.

As Dr. Peter Kreeft and Fr. Ronald Tacelli, S.J., put it so succinctly in the Handbook of Catholic Apologetics:

Protestants usually reject purgatory because they misunderstand it. It does not mean that Jesus did not complete our redemption on the Cross. It means that we did not complete our acceptance of that perfect and finished work during our lives.

Handbook of Catholic Apologetics

This interpretation is nothing new.

St. Thomas Aquinas, in his 13th-century discussion on the Sacrament of Penance, wrote:

Christ’s Passion is of itself sufficient to remove all debt of punishment, not only eternal, but also temporal; and man is released from the debt of punishment according to the measure of his share in the power of Christ’s Passion.

Summa Theologiae

We are free to accept or decline Christ’s invitation to share in His power.

The degree to which we accept it in this life will determine whether we die free of our temporal debts—or whether we will have to make up for our “lack” in the fires of Purgatory.

“Apart from Me You Can Do Nothing…”

To underscore the sufficiency of Christ’s Sacrifice, it is worth noting here that—far from “adding” anything to His Sacrifice—our little efforts at sacrifice are meaningless without it.

Not only are we powerless to do anything good without the help of grace, but even the value of our good acts is fully dependent on Christ’s merits. 

As Jesus says in the True Vine discourse in John’s Gospel:

“He who abides in me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.”

John 15:5

So even when we are discussing the necessity of penance, suffering, and making up for our sins, we are talking about acts that are only valuable because Christ’s acts make them so. 

We don’t add anything to Christ’s Sacrifice. He adds everything to ours. 

In a sense, our acts are empty vessels (which He Himself gave us) that Christ fills with the bountiful wine of His own infinitely precious merits. Filled, overflowing, covered in the Blood of His Passion, these vessels become acceptable gifts at the altar of salvation.

Unity with Christ’s Suffering

You may be wondering at this point why Christ chose this way of doing things at all. Why does He call us to participate in His suffering?

As Catholics, a fruitful subject of meditation is the essence of our relationship with Christ. If we consider it a bit more deeply, even apparently-difficult topics such as suffering and purgatory begin to make sense.

Christ calls us to a greater and deeper relationship with Him than we can ever grasp in this life. We are not merely called to follow Him at a distance. We are not called merely to accept His gifts as passive recipients. This is not a relationship of mere receiving, because it is a relationship of love.

A relationship of love involves both giving and receiving, and its final aim is union with the beloved. The final aim of our relationship with Christ is likewise union with Him. He is our Head, we are the members of His Mystical Body, called to abide in Him as the branch abides in the vine (again, see the True Vine discourse in John 15). 

Let’s think about this. We are members of Christ’s Body. But what happened to his Body while He was on earth? It was given over to the most wretched torments, to death itself, for the sake of our purification and perfection. 

Our call to be united to Him therefore necessarily entails union with Him in His sufferings. He calls us to participate in our own redemption by accepting our identity as His Members and striving to be more and more perfectly united to Him.

“If any one serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there shall my servant be also; if any one serves me, the Father will honor him.”

John 12:26

How Do We Share in the Power of Christ’s Passion?

If the remittance of temporal punishment depends on our participation in Christ’s Passion, how do we do it?

Is this merely an intellectual assent, an act of the will?

We ought to give such assent, but ours is not merely an intellectual faith. Ours is a faith of mind, soul, heart, and body—it is a thing that must be lived in all aspects of our lives. Christ does not ask us to simply accept Him, but to be one with Him.

Essentially, immersing ourselves most completely in the Passion of Christ entails striving for holiness. 

It means cutting off those sources of sin which divide us from Him (and run up our temporal debt). 

It means fully partaking in the gifts He has given us to strengthen our friendship and union with Him—the Holy Mass and the Sacraments of Penance and the Holy Eucharist.

It means re-committing ourselves to prayer. 

And yes, it means suffering. 

Suffering is a gift, as strange as that sounds. It’s one of the clearest invitations and opportunities that Christ sends us to enter with Him into His Passion. 

St. Teresa of Calcutta once called suffering “the kiss of Jesus, a sign that you have come so close to Him on the cross that He can kiss you.”

United to Christ’s Passion, our sufferings become rich springs of graces for us and highly-effective means of disposing ourselves to receive the merits of His Passion—the merits that cancel our debts.

Original Source: From Good Catholic - Purgatory - Cleansing Fire

https://www.goodcatholic.com/lessons/wasnt-jesus-suffering-enough/