Dear Souls and Hearts Member,
Last November I wrote a reflection titled Human Formation in Purgatory? Yes, Indeed emphasizing the importance of doing human formation on Earth so we don’t have as much of it to do Purgatory.
Here’s a summary of my reasoning: 1) “nothing unclean shall enter Heaven” (Rev. 21:27); 2) often, even after our sins have been forgiven, our disordered attachments or deeply engrained habits remain; 3) we need to be cleansed of those attachments and habits before we can enter Heaven, and; 4) those attachments and habits are commonly sourced in the unfinished work of our human formation. Therefore, before we can meet God face to face, we will have to address, either now while we are living or after death in Purgatory, not only our spiritual disorders but all our disorders, including our human formation deficits. Purgatory is not just for the atonement for sins, it is for “…our full transformation, total purification, and the full orientation of our entire being toward God.” [in Lewis F. Ladaria’s chapter titled I Believe in Life Everlasting, in the Catechism of the Catholic Church with Theological Commentary, p. 861].
One Resilient Catholic Community alumnus was not convinced. Indeed, he was troubled. Steve Patton, of the Baby Brothers of Jesus company, contacted me early this month to critique my thinking and to request that I revise it as we approach another November. We had a lively but ultimately inconclusive conversation, which led Steve to suggest that we seek input from a third party whom we both respect, Fr. Boniface Hicks, OSB, which was an excellent idea.
Fr. Boniface is a dear friend of mine and of Souls and Hearts – he was the retreat master of our RCC retreat last year, and he was my guest on Interior Integration for Catholics podcast episodes 136 (Spiritual Direction and Personal Formation) and 137 (Q&A with Fr. Boniface Hicks on Personal Formation and Spiritual Direction).
Fr. Boniface graciously accepted Steve’s and my invitation, and promptly provided us with a personalized 10-minute video reflection. His input was so valuable that I asked his permission, which he granted, to make it available to the general public.
You can watch it here or catch the audio only here.
For this email, Steve and I agreed that he would first restate his critique of my reflection on Purgatory from last year, after which I would reply with some commentary.
I asked Steve for a brief biography, he provided the following, just so you can get to know him a little better: “I am 67, a husband and a father. I have advanced academic degrees and professional experience in both law and theology. What’s most relevant here, though, are my 46 years of fascination, study, reflection and prayer about all things eschatological. What could be more important? After all, this mortal life is brief, death is inevitable, and whatever’s coming next is eternal.”
Steve’s critique:
Hello Dr. Peter,
I agree that our human formation work is vitally important to our spiritual growth. But still, by proposing that whatever human formation work that we leave unfinished in this life we will have to finish in Purgatory, you not only mischaracterize Purgatory, but you also create the potential for a burden of anxiety flowing out of an unwarranted fear of God’s punishment. Let me start with…
A review of the nature and purposes of Purgatory
Purgatory exists for, and only for, cleansing the lingering effects of sin. It is an experience of both God’s loving mercy and his just punishment for our sins, or, more precisely, whatever leftover debt of forgiven sin that remains on our souls. However beneficial we might suppose the experience of Purgatory to be, it is nevertheless, at its core, an experience of suffering. That’s why we, the living, “the Church Militant,” refer to our brethren temporarily detained in Purgatory as “the Church Suffering”.
But the sufferings of Purgatory can be avoided entirely if we take sufficient actions before death to erase any remaining debt of sin. Baptism, Confession, prayer, and penance are those actions. To my knowledge there is no mention in the Tradition that “completing one’s human formation” is either a means or a requirement for avoiding Purgatory, nor can a sound theological case be made for the suggestion. To demonstrate why, consider three scenarios, starting with Molly, an adult burdened with many human formation deficiencies but who dies immediately after receiving baptism.
CCC 1263 describes the graces and effects of Molly’s baptism: “By Baptism all sins are forgiven, original sin and all personal sins, as well as all punishment for sin. In those who have been reborn nothing remains that would impede their entry into the Kingdom of God, neither Adam’s sin, nor personal sin, nor the consequences of sin…” (Emphasis added.) Thus, nothing, including Molly’s many human formation deficiencies, impedes her from going straight to Heaven. She would not need Purgatory even for an instant. Under your proposal, though, she would indeed have to go there.
Next, consider Bob, an imperfectly formed adult who lives on after his baptism and is continuously tempted to sin. CCC 1264 describes him: “Yet certain temporal consequences of sin remain in the baptized, such as suffering, illness, death, and such frailties inherent in life as weaknesses of character, and so on, as well as an inclination to sin that Tradition calls concupiscence… (S)ince concupiscence ‘is left for us to wrestle with, it cannot harm those who do not consent but manfully resist it by the grace of Jesus Christ.’”
I think it’s fair to say that “such frailties in life as weaknesses of character, and so on, as well as an inclination to sin,” would include Bob’s unwanted inclinations to sin stemming from his incomplete human formation. What matters then, as far as Church teaching is concerned, is not the mere fact that Bob still wrestles with sinful desires and urges, regardless of their source. What matters is whether he consents to them. If he does not, then he “cannot be harmed”. Thus, no consent to sin = no time in Purgatory. In your view, though, Bob’s persistent, manful resistance is irrelevant. If he died still suffering from those internal burdens, he would be sent off to suffer in Purgatory.
Third, consider Ed, who has repeatedly consented to temptations sourced in his incomplete human formation. The Church has perennially taught that so long as he receives sacramental forgiveness and makes sufficient satisfaction in this life for the temporal punishment his sins deserve (and perhaps for good measure also completes all the elements of the Divine Mercy Novena), then he’s good to go straight to Heaven, regardless of any remaining deficiencies in his human formation. You would reject this too.
In summary, you view Purgatory as a place where souls are sent over and above the limited purpose of suffering for the lingering debts of sin. You see it also as a kind of finishing school in which one completes the incomplete (i.e., imperfect) process of his human formation.
I submit there is no support for this view in established Catholic teaching about Purgatory and the graces and effects of the Sacraments of Baptism and Confession. Neither can a convincing case be made for this view speculatively because it contradicts a Catholic sense of justice. Namely, to be sent to suffer in Purgatory presupposes that punishment is due, but punishment is due only if there is a lingering debt due to sin. But if a person dies carrying no such debt, then it would be an offense against justice to send that person to Purgatory, regardless of how otherwise corrective and beneficial one might suppose that experience to be.
The injustice of sending a “debt free” soul to Purgatory is amplified when you consider that God might have allowed that person’s human formation deficits to persist in life. We know that while God wants us to be physically healthy, He will nevertheless, in the mystery of His permissive will, often allow us to continue suffering physically, indeed sometimes with painful lifelong maladies. By the same logic He might also providentially allow imperfections and sufferings in our psychological health to persist, even those sourced in our human formation deficits. Indeed…
Lingering imperfections in our human formation can even serve a sanctifying purpose
Here are words of great comfort to those whose human formation remains incomplete. They come from Abbot Marc Foley’s The Context of Holiness, a book you highly recommend:
I have often told people who come to me for spiritual direction to never make it a goal to conquer their faults. Simply ask for the grace to resist the temptation of the moment. Take it for granted that you will always have tendencies toward certain sins and self-destructive behaviors, which will always be opportunities to grow in virtue and rely upon the grace of God.
“I had no need to grow up” (S 208). Thérèse did not make it a goal to get beyond the effects of her childhood but to do the will of God in the midst of them. Thérèse understood that the emotional wounds of her childhood were not obstacles to spiritual growth but the context of growing in holiness. (p.99)
Thérèse can help us to refocus our goal in life. She tells us to keep our minds on doing the will of God. If our emotions are transformed in the process, all well and good. Praise God! But if they are not changed, they are the context in which we will grow in God’s love.
I’m confident that neither Fr. Foley nor St. Thérèse of Lisieux are suggesting we don’t need to work on our human formation. Rather, they would say that while we need to do that work, we need to do it only so that we might better love God, self and neighbor, and not because we fear that if we don’t complete that work in this life that we will have to do so through the sufferings of Purgatory.
A distinction can and must be made between culpable and non-culpable human formation deficiencies
I agree there could be instances in which we would have a Purgatorial price to pay for remaining imperfections in our human formation. But that would only be for imperfections caused by acts and omissions for which we were morally culpable – e.g., through sinful neglect or obstinance – and for which we had not made sufficient penitential satisfaction in this life.
This goes to the heart of my disagreement with you: You make no distinction between culpable and non-culpable human formation deficits. Fr. Boniface agreed that it’s valuable to distinguish between them:
When there (are) remaining culpable problems, when there is a dimension of our will that’s holding onto (or) attached to something that’s not of God and (we) need to have that wrenched free… that’s one thing. (But) when there’s just a capacity of our humanity, out of some level of woundedness that has a hard time fully opening up to another, that’s another thing.
Making this distinction is crucially important
My asking you for clarification is no quibble over an unimportant matter of speculative theology. Your proposal has real-world implications, particularly for those dedicated to their human formation. Let’s take the men in my RCC company for example. Frequently they’d express performance anxieties grounded either in guilt – for not working hard enough – or shame – for not making enough progress. Your repeated, calming words encouraging us to be patient with ourselves and to trust the process helped to allay some of those anxieties. But your words about Purgatory and human formation, if taken to heart, would not allay our performance anxieties but would fuel them by adding fear to the already potent forces of guilt and shame.
Certainly fear, like shame and guilt, has its proper place as a motivator in our lives, including our spiritual lives. But only if it is warranted. In this consideration, invoking a fear of the sufferings of Purgatory would be theologically warranted only if culpability was involved. If we have no moral culpability for our lingering human formation deficits, then we should have no fear of suffering in Purgatory because of them.
But if not Purgatory, then how?
I appreciate that your question yet remains: If our non-culpable human formation deficits are not removed through the “cleansing fire” (CCC 1031) of Purgatory, then how will they be? Here’s how Fr. Boniface characterizes the conundrum:
There are no defenses in Heaven. There are no psychological ways of hiding myself. There’s no numbing agents. There’s no shutting down. There’s no distortion. There’s no manipulation. There’s only pure self-revelation and the pure receptivity of another.
So… at the moment of my death am I actually capable of entering into that kind of communion of love? Or is there a little bit of finishing that needs to happen in order to help me maybe peel off some layers of psychological defenses, the limitations of my woundedness, some disharmonization of my parts? Is there some finishing that needs to happen between death and heaven? And Dr. Peter is saying, well, clearly. Now, is that finishing what people often have in mind in terms of purgatory?
Fr. Boniface then posits that the finishing of those deficits is not necessarily, for everyone, a “punishing, purifying, painful, wrenching” experience. Those terms would be more fitting for a person who dies while still “tightly holding those (deficits) in culpable sinfulness”:
That’s going to be a more painful experience than if I don’t even really know where those things are in ignorance, or I didn’t intend to kind of bury those things. It’s really a psychological defense against a very hard life. Well, that’s going to be a very different experience where, as I am immersed in love, that human formation kind of gets filled out, that may be even a little bit sweeter experience.
In support of his opinion that there could be a “sweeter” experience of Purgatory for the non-culpable and yet still imperfectly formed soul, Fr. Boniface refers to Benedict XVI’s Spe Salvi. Pope Benedict wrote:
Before (Christ’s) gaze all falsehood melts away. This encounter with him, as it burns us, transforms and frees us, allowing us to become truly ourselves. All that we build during our lives can prove to be mere straw, pure bluster, and it collapses. Yet in the pain of this encounter, when the impurity and sickness of our lives become evident to us, there lies salvation. His gaze, the touch of his heart heals us through an undeniably painful transformation “as through fire”. But it is a blessed pain, in which the holy power of his love sears through us like a flame, enabling us to become totally ourselves and thus totally of God… (T)he way we live our lives is not immaterial, but our defilement does not stain us forever… Indeed, it has already been burned away through Christ’s Passion. At the moment of judgement we experience and we absorb the overwhelming power of his love over all the evil in the world and in ourselves. The pain of love becomes our salvation and our joy.
It’s not clear, though, that Benedict suggests here that an imperfectly formed, but nevertheless non-culpable soul would be sent off to “an undeniably painful transformation”. Benedict’s use of “falsehood”, “mere straw”, “pure bluster”, “impurity”, “sickness”, “defilement”, and “evil” seems better to describe souls who die with at least some remaining measure of culpability.
So your question remains: if not through the “undeniably painful transformation” of Purgatory then how else would a non-culpable yet imperfect soul be readied for the perfect life of Heaven? I propose simply this: at the moment of death, when a soul definitively separates from its body, God instantaneously unburdens it from all of its pains, disorders, disabilities, wounds, developmental delays, cravings and any other imperfections, both those sourced in its body and those sourced in its mind. Why would God unburden a departed soul from its non-culpable bodily sufferings, like its crippled back, and not also unburden it from its non-culpable mental sufferings, like its crippling anxiety disorder?
No, it seems more just and reasonable that at death, the place and purpose of all these imperfections and sufferings will conclude. Having patiently, prayerfully, manfully and thus redemptively endured all the sufferings of both its body and its mind, the soul will finally be freed of them. Our loving Father will lift away the burden of these sufferings like so much soiled clothing.
The difficulty in accepting this view, I think, is that we naturally equate a person’s soul with the activities – both ordered and disordered – of his mind. But this is wrong. They are not the same thing. The principle is summarized in the saying, “You are not your thoughts.” Or, in IFS parlance, while I might be internally burdened, that does mean that I am those burdens.
Thus, so long as “I”, my core self, do not consent to the lies and urges of my disordered, burdened parts, I cannot be harmed by them. Indeed, to recall Abbot Foley’s phrasing, so long as I am doing the will of God in the midst of my persistent emotional wounds then they are not obstacles to my spiritual growth but are the context of my growth in holiness.
Thank you for welcoming my thoughts and for considering revising your own.
In Jesus through Mary,
Steve Patton
My response to Steve’s concerns about the previous reflection
First, I want to express gratitude for Steve taking the time and effort to bring this to my attention and to share with us his concerns. I also want to thank Fr. Boniface Hicks for his engagement and contributions to the discussion. Both are much appreciated.
I think this is a case that exemplifies Souls and Heart’s openness to our members and to the open and free exchange of ideas. Especially when our members/readers/viewers/listeners have any concerns about the theological soundness and orthodoxy what Souls and Hearts publishes. In short, we both want and ask for feedback when our members sense that our content might be less than fully consistent with what our Catholic Church teaches.
At the same time, there are many areas within Catholic teaching that are not authoritatively defined and which are open to speculation by the faithful in the search for truth. Purgatory is only mentioned in six paragraphs in the Catechism of the Catholic Church: 1030, 1031, 1032, 1472, 1475, and 1498. As Fr. Boniface noted, “The Church actually teaches very little about purgatory. The church simply teaches that there is a place of purification or a stage of purification that continues after death. So that’s really about it.”
Both Steve and I agree that, in accord with the Book of Revelation that “nothing unclean shall enter Heaven” (21:27). We differ on where and how that purification happens. Steve boldly asserts that “Purgatory exists for, and only for, cleansing the lingering effects of sin” — but without any reference to any Church authority to support this position. In contrast, I think Purgatory has multiple functions, including completing our human formation, not just the one function of cleansing the lingering effects of sin.
Moreover, one of the “lingering effects of sin” are the deficits or “deformations” in our human formation. In fact, every disorder within us is the effect of sin – original sin, the sins of others, and personal sin, and disorders in human formation are no exception – there was a perfect, natural harmony within Adam and Eve before the Fall. So in my opinion, even Steve’s narrowly proscribed single function of purgatory of “cleansing the lingering effects of sin” includes completing the process of human formation.
The U.S. Bishops in their document The Program for Priestly Formation, Sixth Edition in paragraph 206 state that “Seminarians bear the primary responsibility for their human formation.” This is a remarkably important statement that, in my opinion, applies to all Catholic adults, not just seminarians. While the bishops acknowledge the undeniable impact of parents and others on human formation, each individual is responsible for his or her own human formation, including what was formed before the age of reason. That responsibility does not imply culpability for other’s actions. It simply means that you should not exempt yourself from resolving your human formation issues that you did not cause yourself.
Let’s break that down.
I think of the initial human formation that happens in a child before the age of reason as the poker hand that individual was dealt. None of us are responsible for our parents’ actions, and the initial human formation we received before the age of reason. However, we are responsible for our human formation afterward – how we play the hand we were dealt. As Kenny Roger informs us in his song The Gambler, “Every hand’s a winner” – if you play it well. And “every hand’s a loser” if you don’t take responsibility for your human formation. I discuss this theme at length in my reflection The Deepest Human Formation Work A Catholic Can Do.
Our human formation is all bound up with our intellect and especially our will. That’s why Steve’s distinction between non-culpable and culpable human formation deficits doesn’t sway me much. I don’t see the human formation instilled in us as determinative – I personally have seen so many people from very rough, abusive, neglectful families grow and flourish – they play the human formation hands dealt to them very well. They take responsibility for their human formation. And in God’s providence, He uses their initial difficulties, in cooperation with their wills and intellects to raise them to high levels, not only of sanctity but of flourishing in their human formation in the natural realm, higher than they would have reached had they had better initial human formation. I address how this happens in in episode 107 of the Interior Integration for Catholic podcast, titled How to Work Through Your Anger at God, using Sr. Josephine Bakhita’s experience of childhood abuse and slavery as an example.
If we flee from what would resolve our human formation issues, we are responsible for resulting continuing disorder. Thus, I am skeptical that God will or even can just remove those human formation disorders after death, because unlike most physical disorders, the will perpetuates the human formation deficits. If human formation disorders continue to be willed at death, it seems like a purification of the will is needed to release them; God can’t just heal them without violating the person’s will. It’s not the same as just healing a club foot or a cleft palate where there is not attachment of the will.
Steve states that I “create the potential for a burden of anxiety flowing out of an unwarranted fear of God’s punishment.” I’ve not heard any reaction like that to the original reflection, and I’m very open to feedback by email, text, or phone. Rather, the small number of feedback comments on the original reflection were uniformly positive; one Resilient Catholics Community member stated she joined the RCC because of that reflection, realizing that there are not just natural but also spiritual implications for her doing her human formation work.
In a phone conversation, I asked Steve if he had heard of any cases where my original reflection had caused such a burden of anxiety and unwarranted fear, and he admitted he had not. I do readily acknowledge the possibility that the original article might trigger a reaction like that in some people, but given that we don’t have a confirmed example of it happening, I wonder how common it would be.
What is very common is the perpetuation of human formation deficits. Playing the human formation hand badly. Our human formation is bound up in our will and our intellect – we have parts of us that are very attached to and cling to maladaptive aspects of our human formation. We may have people-pleasing or approval seeking parts who don’t want to set limits and boundaries in our relationships with others. We may have avoidant parts who withdraw from the very relationships that would help us heal. We have fearful parts who won’t tolerate the vulnerability to be seen, heard, known and understood as we are, and thus keep other parts of us in the darkness of isolation, separated from the healing power of love. If we go with those impulses in our innermost self, we are playing our human formation hand badly, and we are responsible for the consequences of not healing, growing, and flourishing.
And that is the clear and present danger that I am hoping each of you will avoid. And I see it all the time, the ways Catholics (and others) hide and flee from love because we give into our human formation deficits and perpetuate our problems—that that is as old as Adam and Eve fleeing from God in after the Fall in the Garden of Eden in Genesis 3. I discuss this theme of avoiding the healing power of love at length in IIC Episode 99 titled Why We Catholics Reject God’s Love for Us and How to Embrace that Love and Episode 36 titled Why We Flee from Real Love. In my opinion, that’s the much more prominent danger.
Neither Steve nor I are theologians, and given the lack of specifics in binding Church teaching on Purgatory, I encourage you to consider the arguments presented here and discern. I don’t find anything in Steve’s positions to be opposed to definitive Church teaching, and so if you find his arguments about Purgatory more persuasive than mine, I totally accept that, and I’m glad you engaged in the discernment process.
And I think it’s worth noting that we agree about more than we disagree on. We both agree that our human formation deficits must be remedied before we enter into heaven – and to me, that’s the important message. We both agree that it is important to work on human formation issues during our lives on earth. We disagree about how human formation deficits are remedied after death. I hold that happens in Purgatory. Steve says it happens outside of Purgatory, by God’s grace.
Check out this interesting article by Stephen Beale on the Catholic Exchange titled 10 Things You Didn’t Know About Purgatory, including about how the souls in Purgatory experience great joy.
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Three more days to apply to the Resilient Catholics Community
The programming for the St. Hildegard of Bingen cohort, our next one, doesn’t start until January 2025 – but registrations must be in by October 31. After registration, you will still have until November 15 or so to complete you PartsFinder Pro measures, so there is a buffer there.
Why so much time between registration and starting the programming?
In a word, it’s about discernment. We take discernment seriously in the RCC – our staff spends hours with your application, writing and reviewing your PartsFinder Pro report and we meet with you on Zoom. You discern on your end, and we discern on ours – not just about whether the RCC is a good fit for you right now, but what other resources might make your adjustment to the RCC better. If the joint discernment is a green light all around, we spend a lot of time matching you with your company mates and pairing you with a companion.
That is all a process that we don’t rush, because we are seeking what is best for you to flourish in your human formation. To help with the discernment about whether to apply, check out this 19-minute experiential exercise to help sort through the decision about applying with your parts. If any of your parts are set against it, you don’t join the RCC. Why? Because we work collaboratively and cooperatively with parts – and we don’t steamroll, avoid, or suppress parts. All the parts that you are aware of need to have at least “grudging acceptance” about joining the RCC or it doesn’t happen. Your parts don’t have to be enthusiastic about enrolling in the RCC, but there must be at least a willingness to engage in our structured, step-by-step, 12-month program.
We start at the very beginning – in the RCC; we will teach you what you need to know about parts and systems. We also do experiential exercises in every company meeting, to help your parts feel safe enough to be seen, heard, known and understood, so that you can love them, and thus be much better equipped to love God and your neighbor.
For more information, check out our RCC landing page, watch our 60-minute informational video, and/or email me at crisis@soulsandhearts.com or reach out to me on my cell at 317.567.9594 – I’d enjoy exploring if the RCC is right for you. And click on this registration link to start your human formation adventure if you are ready!
IIC Episode 152 Internal Family Systems Demonstrations Part II with Marion Moreland
For another take on what Catholic parts work look like in action, join Marion Moreland in this 74-minute episode (Video and Audio) as she accompanies RCC member Caris in connecting, understanding, and loving Caris’ parts – not just the manager parts who are usually in front, but also some of Caris’ hidden exiled parts in this demonstration. Sarah is present in an observing role. This demonstration illustrates very typical ways of accompanying parts in inner work. Marion and Caris address themes of striving for productivity and perfection, control and rebellion, the pain of love rejected, and self-soothing. You are invited into the “observer role” with Sarah to connect with your own parts in your human formation as you experience the demo and your parts resonate with parts coming up in Caris’ work.
Values Workshop 3: Choosing your Values
Our last workshop, titled “Choosing your Values” was a success – such an excellent discussion. I shared the process of how I went about choosing seven values with my parts, and we had an invigorating Q&A afterward. Check out the 60-minute video or audio, and join us for our next one on Monday evening, December 2 from 8:00 PM to 9:00 PM Eastern time when we will get into the actual process of writing a values statement, step-by-step. Admission is free, but you must be on my email list to receive the Zoom link to join – you can ask me to join by emailing me at crisis@soulsandhearts.com or reaching out on my cell at 317.567.9594. I will be sending out the Zoom link to the 120+ members on my list in the next week or so, so stay tuned for that.
Conversation hours every Tuesday and Thursday from 4:30 PM to 5:30 PM Eastern time
Any who following my work in the IIC podcast or these reflections or elsewhere are welcome to call me on my cell at 317.567.9594 any Tuesday and Thursday from 4:30 PM to 5:30 PM Eastern time to discuss – I enjoy hearing from those who take in our offerings from Souls and Hearts.
Prayers all around…
And finally, let’s pray for each other, and let’s pray for the Holy Souls in Purgatory as well. All the good done in Souls and Hearts is fueled by prayer, is supported by prayer. So let’s pray and work together in this ongoing adventure in human formation.
Warm regards in Christ and His Mother,
Dr. Peter