Theological Studies

73 (2012)

IN PURGATORY WE SHALL ALL BE MYSTICS

H arvey

D.

E gan,

SJ.

The average Christian who accepts or rejects purgatory usually views

it as a demi-hell set up by divine justice between heaven and hell
to punish those who have died without having made sufficient
reparation for their sins. This article contends, however, that the
purgatorial stage o f the consciousness o f the mystics, caused by
their intense experience o f the incompatibility o f sin and divine Love,
is a paradigm o f postmortem purgatory and is confirmed by recent
theological writing.
n h er book,

The Divine Crucible o f Purgatory, Mother Mary of St. Austin

Imaintains that in purgatory (our masters tell us) we shall be mystics,

whether or not any one of us had on earth the divine contacts and illuminations of the mystical state.1 Thus, the title of this article, which
expresses my conviction that the mystical consciousness2 of the Holy3 as
tremendum et fascinans provides a foundation for a contemporary theology

H a r v e y D. E g a n , S.J., received his ThD from the University of Mnster and is

professor emeritus of theology at Boston College. Specializing in systematic theology (especially Karl Rahner) and Christian mysticism, he has most recently published: Ignatius of Loyola, Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, Francis de
Sales, Cloud of Unknowing, Thomas Merton, Karl Rahner, and The Mystical Tradition, in the Encyclopedia o f Christian Civilization (2010); Evelyn
Underhill Revisited, Way 51 (January 2012); and Soundings in the Christian Mystical Tradition (2010). In process is a work on an understanding of hell in light of the
teaching of the mystics.

1 Mother Mary of St. Austin, The Divine Crucible o f Purgatory, rev. and ed.
Nicholas Ryan, S.J. (New York: P. J. Kennedy, 1940) 9.
2 Evelyn Underhills work, Mysticism: A Study in the Nature and Development of
Spiritual Consciousness, 12th ed., rev. (1911; Minela, NY: Dover, 2002), initiated a
shift from approaching mysticism in terms of experience to that of consciousness. However, the real change occurred through the ground-breaking work of
Bernard McGinn, who was influenced by Underhill and especially by Bernard
Lonergans cognitional theory. See Bernard McGinn, The Presence o f God: A
History o f Western Christian Mysticism, 4 volumes to date (New York: Crossroad,
1991-2005) and his article, Mystical Consciousness: A Modest Proposal, Spiritus
8 (2008) 44-63.
3 The classic study on the Holy is Rudolf Otto, The Idea o f the Holy: An Inquiry
into the Non-Rational Factor in the Idea o f the Divine and Its Relation to the Rational,
2nd ed., trans. John W. Harvey (New York: Oxford University, 1958).
870

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of purgatory.4 The writings of four mystics who make an explicit comparison

between their mystical life and purgatorythe anonymous author of The
Cloud o f Unknowing (ca. 1345-ca. 1386), Catherine of Genoa (1447-1510),
John of the Cross (1542-1591), and Marie of the Incarnation (1599-1672)
provide an unusually perspicacious understanding not only of purgative
consciousness as a stage in the mystical journey toward transforming union
but also of a paradigm for comprehending the continuity between the
earthly life of sin and grace, postmortem purification, and the beatific vision.5
Their acute consciousness of God,6 the Holy Spirit, and Christ indwelling
their souls causes an intense, almost unbearable, but purgative and transformative awareness of the sinful creature,s resistance to divine life. The
purgative and transforming encounter of the mystics with the Holy is, in my
view, an apt paradigm for postmortem purgatory. Their views also prefigure what one finds in recent theological thinking on purgatory as the
postmortem purifying and transforming meeting with Jesus Christ, or God,
or the Holy Spirit.
EXPERIENCE OF THE HOLY AS TREMENDUM ET FASCINANS

The Holy is one of Gods proper names (Amos 4:2); it names the essence
of deity. The Bible emphasizes that one cannot look upon Gods face and
live. Who is like God, who is above all that is not God (Pss 71:19; 89:8; 113:5)?
The Bible depicts Gods holy presence as both attractive and dangerous.
Isaiahs triple invocation of the Holy proclaimed not only Gods Majesty
but also the prophets precariousness in the presence of the Holy because of
his absolute unworthiness as a sinful creature. Even the demons quake in
the presence of the Holy and cry out in fear: What have you to do with us,
Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the
Holy One of God (Mk 1:24).
The purgatorial consciousness of mystics also confirms the paradoxical
nature of the human encounter with the Holy. The more deeply one experiences Gods nearness, the more one awakens to ones sinfulness and
creaturely nothingness. I am nothing; I have nothing7 is the refrain of
4 The classic work on purgatory is Jacques LeGoff, The Birth o f Purgatory, trans.
Arthur Goldhammer (Chicago: Chicago University, 1981). The medieval view of
purgatory has perdured to the present day.
5 For a study of numerous mystics who write of the purgative way but with no
explicit link to postmortem purgatory, see Harvey D. Egan, Soundings in the Christian
Mystical Tradition (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical, 2010).
6 The reader may wonder why I have not specified God the Father for God
and so did not explicitly invoke the Trinity. The reason is that many mystical writers
simply do not further specify God.
7 Walter Hilton, The Scale o f Perfection, trans., intro., notes by John P. H. Clark
and Rosemary Dorward; pref. Janel Mueller (New York: Paulist, 1991) 2.22.

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THEOLOGICAL STUDIES

numerous Christian mystics. Mystics also experience themselves as an infinite question to which only God is the answer; an immense longing that only
Love can quench; an endless desire that finds dissatisfied satisfaction only
in Gods incomprehensible Mystery; a nothing in the face of the NoThing;
and an abyss whose bottom is the Abyss, into which even the soul of Christ
vanishes (Angelus Silesius). They pray that the Holys Word will imprint
in your soul, as in a crystal, the image of His own beauty . . . and the Holy
Spirit will transform you into a mysterious lyre, which, in silence, beneath
His divine touch, will produce a magnificent canticle to Love.8 Above all,
they desire only to unite with or simply to vanish into the Holy.
The Purgatorial Consciousness of the Anonymous Author of
The Cloud o f Unknowing

The depiction of mystical ascent by the anonymous 14th-century author

of the classic The Cloud o f Unknowing provides, in my view, an analogy for
understanding postmortem purgation, purgatory.9 This unknown British
Carthusian monk maintains not only that mans highest perfection is
union with God in consummate love but also that this union is so profound
that the contemplative will be no more separated from God than God is
from his own being.10 To the monks way of thinking, mystical union prefigures the beatific vision.
The anonymous mystic also underscores that nothing surpasses mystical
contemplation as the means for achieving this loving union with God. Thus
he writes specifically for those somehow attracted to mystical contemplation, for those who feel the mysterious action of the Spirit in their
inmost being stirring them to love and have resolved to follow Christ
perfectly . . . into the inmost depths of contemplation.11
Adams fall, to the anonymous monks way of thinking, caused the
human persons disharmony with both self and God and the inclination
to disorder and sin. Although baptism and sacramental confession
remove original and personal sins, only the one-ing process of mystical
contemplationan earthly purgatorial processcan heal human fragmentation by restoring in Christ what was lost in Adam because God
alone is the chief worker here.12 The ascetical life, human efforteven
8 Letter 269, in Elizabeth of the Trinity, Complete Works o f Elizabeth o f the
Trinity, vol. 2, Letters from Carmel, ed. Conrad de Meester, O.C.D., trans. Anne
Englund Nash (Washington: Institute of Carmelite Studies, 1995).
9 The Cloud o f Unknowing and the Book o f Privy Counseling, new ed., intro.
William Johnston (Garden City, NY: Doubleday-Image, 1976).
10 Privy Counseling chap. 11; see also chap. 21.
11 Ibid.; see also foreword.
12 Ibid. chap. 17, emphasis added.

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with ordinary graceis insufficient to restore the souls pristine image

and likeness of God damaged by Adam.
Mystical contemplation, in this Carthusians opinion, totally transcends
ordinary Christian life, which he deems mundane and far from Christ.13
Even the very desire for contemplation is strictly gift. Without Gods
extraordinary grace, he writes, a person would be so completely insensitive to the reality of contemplative prayer that he would be unable to desire
or long for it.14 However, it is not given for innocence nor withheld for
sin,15 although it may be withdrawn because of sin.
Special signs in ones spiritual life indicate that one is called to mystical
contemplation.16 First, the exterior sign is a persistent, joyful enthusiasm
whenever one hears or reads about contemplation. Second, the interior
sign is a growing and incessant blind desire for contemplation, a secret
little love that makes ones daily devotions almost impossible. Third, if the
tiny flame of love briefly disappears from consciousness, its return causes
an overwhelming joy that more than supplants the deep sadness produced
by its departure: Your whole personality will be transformed, your countenance will radiate an inner beauty, and for as long as you feel it nothing
will sadden you.17
The anonymous monk instructs the contemplative tyro to create a cloud
of forgetting between himself and all created things. Because thought
cannot reach Godonly lovethe novice must forget everything and
reject all thoughts, even those of God, Christ, Mary, and the saints. The
holiest and most sublime thoughts should be treated and rejected like the
vilest temptations. Firmly reject all clear ideas however pious and delightful, he writes, for they are more hindrance than help.18
This practice, aided by the repetition of a short, meaningful word, such as
God or Christ, causes a cloud of unknowing to arise between the
contemplative and God. Because thinking has stopped, the contemplative
must learn to be at home in the darkness caused by the absence of knowledge and to direct his dart of desire, naked intent, and blind desire
toward God. Only blind and naked contemplation, that is, one shorn of
all thought and images, can penetrate the cloud between God and the
contemplative and allow the person to rest quietly in the loving awareness
of Gods very being.
This blind, loving contemplation is initially easy, consoling, and joyful
but quickly turns into a deeply purgative flame. However, the distractions
that soon arise in creating the clouds of forgetting and unknowing become the
13
15
16
17

Cloud o f Unknowing chap. 1.

14 Ibid. chap. 34, 91.
Ibid.
Ibid. chap. 75; Privy Counseling chaps. 18-19.
Privy Counseling chap. 19.
18 Cloud o f Unknowing chap. 9.

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persons purgatory.19 Also a purgatory is an in-between state filled with

great storms and temptations caused by the rebellion of the imagination
and reason, which are now deprived of their natural activity. The purgative
period intensifies when the person no longer experiences the contemplative
desire, cannot return to regular meditations, and may give in to the temptation either to strain spiritually or to give up and return to an ignoble life.
Patience and perseverance will reward the contemplative with refreshing
delights. However, as the blind stirring of love roots itself more deeply into
the soul, it causes all past sins to arise and torture the person.20 The monk
writes: No evil thought, word, or deed remains hidden. . . . At times the
sight is as terrible as a glimpse of hell and he is tempted to despair of ever
being healed and relieved of his sore burden.21 But, if he perseveres in the
cloud of unknowing, he will be rewarded with the experience of his past
sins being healed. Slowly he begins to realize that the sufferings he
endures are not really hell at all, but his purgatory.22
Once the naked dart of mystical love heals the remnants of personal sins,
the contemplative suffers greatly from experiencing self as a lump of sin.
The root unity of ones sinfulness, that is, original sin, now shows itself
for the evil it is. This foul, wretched lump called sin, the monk writes, is
none other than yourself.23 Instructive, however, is his observation that
the cloud of unknowing causes both this profound, holistic tasting of ones
sinfulness and, at times, of some heavenly paradise.24 In brief, the
encounter with the Holy is both tremendum et fascinans.
According to the anonymous author, not only sinfulness but also human
existence itself separates us from God. The contemplative comes to the
excruciating realization that a great chasm exists between himself and
God. The painful inability to forget himself during contemplation causes an
even deeper purification. Our monk writes that that elemental sense of
your own blind being will remain between you and your God.25 The
simple awareness of my being, the cross of self, the painful burden of
self . . . makes my heart break with weeping because I experience only self
and not God.26 However, this purgative experience eventually sets the
contemplative on fire with the loving desire to experience God as he
really is.27

19 Ibid. chap. 23.

20 Ibid. chap. 69.
21 Ibid. Shortly after his conversion, Ignatius of Loyolas scruples over past
sinswhich he confessed again and againcaused such pain and self-hatred that
he contemplated suicide. See St. Ignatius' Own Story, trans. William J. Young,
SJ. (Chicago: Loyola University, 1956) nos. 19-25.
22 Cloud o f Unknowing chap. 69.
23 Ibid. chap. 43.
24 Ibid., chap. 69.
25 Privy Counseling chap. 13.
26 Ibid. chap. 14.
27 Ibid.

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Employing the typology of his day, the Carthusian presents Mary

Magdalene, sitting lovingly at Jesus feet, as the ideal contemplative.28 (It
was actually Mary of Bethany.) She is the one who reveals the most intense
kind of contemplative suffering. Never ceasing to feel an abiding sorrow for
the sins that she carried like a great secret burden in her heart all her life,
Marys greatest pain came from her inability to love as much as she was
loved. The more one loves, the more one desires to love. Sick from her
failure to love, the monk writes, for this she languished with painful
longing and sorrow almost to the point of death.29 The more one experienees contemplative love, the greater will be the desire to return this love
in full. At the zenith of what is known as the dark night of the soul, love
itself is the contemplatives healing and transforming torture.
The anonymous author emphasizes that the God-given blind stirring of
love causes the dark night of the soul only because of the persons resistance and inability to love as much as one is loved. (To paraphrase Meister
Eckhart: only the Nt (No) to Love in ones being burns.30) However, the
dart of love also nourishes the contemplative with joy, peace, repose, revelations, and even ecstasies. Most importantly, the monk underscores the
salient feature of contemplation: the gift of full union with God, for God is
your being, but you are not his.31 This union is so profound that just as
God is one with His being because they are one in nature, so the spirit
which sees and experiences Him is one with Him . . . because they have
become one in grace.32 In summary, this earthly purgatory consisting of a
deepened sense of ones sinfulness, creaturely nothingness, and inability to
love enough serves as a stage on the way to full union with God is the
paradigm of ones purgatory after death.
The Purgatorial Consciousness of Saint Catherine of Genoa

Some of the most captivating passages on purgation in the Christian

tradition flow from the mystical wisdom of Catherine of Genoa. The
things that I speak about, she dictated to her spiritual director, work
within me in secret and with great power.33 During a Lenten confession
28 Cloud o f Unknowing chaps. 16-17.
29 Ibid. chap. 16.
30 Sermon 5b: In hoc apparuit charitas dei in nobis (German Works) in Meister
Eckhart: The Essential Sermons, Commentaries, Treatises, and Defense, trans. and
intro. Edmund Colledge and Bernard McGinn, pref. Huston Smith (New York:
Paulist, 1981) 183.
31 Cloud o f Unknowing chap. 44; Privy Counseling chap. 1; see also chap. 12.
32 Privy Counseling chap. 12; see also chap. 21.
33 Catherine of Genoa, Purgation and Purgatory: The Spiritual Dialogue, trans.
and notes Serge Hughes; intro. Benedict J. Groeschel; pref. Catherine de Hueck
Doherty (New York: Paulist, 1979) 86.

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in March 1447, Catherine experienced God as pure love so suddenly and

overwhelmingly that she rejoiced: If, of that which this heart of mine is
feeling, one drop were to fall into hell, hell itself would become all eternal
life.34 However, she was also seized with such despair and self-loathing
because of her sins that her soul cried out, O Lord, no more world, no
more sins!35 In contrast to the many mystics who were gradually purified
and illuminated by pure love before being united to it, Catherines purgation and transformation seem to have occurred almost instantaneously.
God as pure, incomprehensible love is the salient feature of Catherines
mysticism. She contends that the ray of burning love so united her to God
that from that time on nothing could separate them. Nothing but pure love
now means anything to her and she rejects any love that would be for or in
God because pure love loves God who is Pure Love without a why or
wherefore.36 She testifies that just as food is transformed into what consumes it, she is Gods food being transformed into Godself, who eliminates
all waste products in the processan arresting image of pre- and postmortem purgation. My Me is God, she cries out, nor do I recognize any
other Me except my God Himself.37 In her view, her being is Gods being
and Gods being is her being, and not by simple participation but by a true
transformation of [her] being.38
For this reason, she judged her very own self as the very opposite
of Godthus, her worst enemy. The slightest deviation from pure love
caused her intense suffering. Moreover, God had revealed to her that selfwill was so subtle and deeply rooted that it obeyed only itselfno matter
how hard she tried to outwit it. The penetrating awareness of her spiritual
corruption became so intense at times that she would have despaired and
then died, had God not lessened the duration of this experience.39
Although Catherine underscored as most bitter the purgatorial battle
between pure love and self-love, she stressed another kind of war: the one
between body and soul. Experience had taught her that the body is a
veritable purgatory because of the souls desire to depart from it to be
with God. Although the soul has a natural instinct for God, it finds itself
bound to a body entirely contrary to its own nature.40 This infelicitous

34 Catherine of Genoa, Vita, quoted by Friedrich von Hgel, The Mystical Element
o f Religion as Studied in Saint Catherine o f Genoa and Her Friends, 2nd ed., 2 vols.
(Westminster, MD: Christian Classics, 1961) 1:159.
35 Catherine of Genoa, Spiritual Dialogue 109.
36 Catherine of Genoa, Vita, quoted in von Hgel, Mystical Element 1:268.
37 Vita, quoted in von Hgel, Mystical Element 1:265.
38 Ibid.
39 Catherine of Genoa, Purgation and Purgatory 81.
40 Catherine of Genoa, Vita in von Hgel, Mystical Element 1:273.

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understanding of the body-soul relationship may have emerged from her

long years of illness that ended in an excruciating death.
Catherine came to understand that purgatory is Gods fiery love that by
itself could annihilate the immortal soul. In so acting, God so transforms
the soul in him that it knows nothing other than God; and he continues to
draw it up into his fiery love until he restores it to that pure state from
which it first issued. As it is being drawn upward, the soul feels itself
melting in the fire of that love of its sweet God.41
The rays of lightning from Gods fiery love annihilate all resistance to
God, that is, the impediments from the rust of sin. Mixing images, she
taught that only these obstacles cause the sufferings of the soul in purgatory,
and it feels within it a fire like that of hell. However, the one undergoing
purgatory does not dwell on the suffering; one dwells rather on the resistance felt in oneself against pure love. One of the most creative insights in
the Christian tradition concerning purgatory results from Catherines confession that there is no joy save that in paradise to be compared to the joy
of the souls in purgatory.42 The profound realization that the rust of sin
is gradually being removed and opening the soul more and more to Gods
love, therefore, produces both suffering and joy.
Catherine also taught that the doors of paradise are open to anyone
who wishes to enter. God does not place a soul in purgatory or hell. In her
view, when the person dies, the light and fire of Gods pure love compels
the soul to seek its own place, based on the nature of its sins. If the soul in
mortal sin did not find itself in hell, for example, it would experience a
still greater hell than the one due it. So it is with purgatory: Should the
soul find that the assigned place is not sufficient to remove its impediment,
then it would experience a hell far worse than purgatory.43
Catherine emphasized that nothing she says can compare to what she felt
about the correspondence of love between God and the soul. As the soul
returns to its original purity through purgatorys cleansing action, God
draws and unites the soul to Godself with a burning love that seemingly
annihilates it.44 God transforms the soul into that pure state from which
41 Catherine of Genoa, Purgation and Purgatory 79.
42 Ibid. 79, 74, 72. Augustine of Hippos view of purgatory is much harsher. The
saving fire of purgatory causes suffering greater than anyone can bear in this life.
See Augustines commentary on Psalm 38:2, in Expositions on the Book o f Psalms,
http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/NPNFl-08/TOC.htm (accessed July 14, 2012).
43 Catherine of Genoa, Purgation and Purgatory 77.
44 Thrse of Lisieux wrote: To be able to gaze on your glory, I know that we
have to pass through fire. So I, for my purgatory, choose your burning love ( The
Poetry o f Saint Thrse o f Lisieux, trans. Donald Kinney, O.C.D. [Washington:
Institute Carmelite Studies, 1996] poem no. 23:8,120). Thrse also taught that when
one lives on love, it bums away everything contrary to God (poem no. 17:6, 90).

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THEOLOGICAL STUDIES

it first issued45 so that it knows nothing other than God. Feeling itself
melting in the fire of Gods rapturous love and then stripped of all imperfections, the soul rests in God with no characteristics of its own. Our being
is then God.46
The Purgatorial Consciousness of John of the Cross

John of the Cross, the 16th-century Carmelite reformer and Doctor of

the Church, blended mystical poetry, which he called expressions of love
arising from abundant mystical understanding,47 with discursive commentary to unfold somewhat systematically the classical purgative, illuminative,
and unitive stages that culminate in the highest degree of perfection one
can reach in this life (transformation in God).48
Johns works underscore a general movement from an entrance into a
twilight of the senses, by which one transcends the world of appearances to
a total night of the spirit, by which the self is transcended, to a mystical
dawn and journey toward the noonday sun, that is, spiritual betrothal and
marriage. These phases, to my way of thinking, are analogous to postmortem purgation and entry into the full enjoyment of life with God.
Because all the beauty of creatures compared to the infinite beauty of
God is the height of ugliness,49 John counsels his disciples to empty completely intellect, memory, and will and to walk the mystical way in naked
faith, hope, and love. The desire to enter into complete nudity, emptiness,
and poverty in everything in the world50 sets the tone for his entire mystical enterprise.
In one of Johns works, The Ascent o f Mount Carmel, the contemplative
lover sings of her good fortune in having departed one dark night to be
united with her beloved. This book explains the process of mystical purification of the senses and of the spirit, nights that become progressively
more obscure, dark, and dreadful.51
The twilight darkness begins when the person starts to wage war against
disordered worldly appetites and desires by embracing what is most difficult, harshest, least pleasant, and least comforting. Moreover, contemplatives at this stage frequently find much satisfaction in long hours of prayer,
45 Catherine of Genoa, Purgation and Purgatory 79.
46 Ibid. 80.
47 John of the Cross, Spiritual Canticle, Prologue 1, in The Collected Works
o f St. John o f the Cross, trans. Kieran Kavanaugh, O.C.D., and Otilio Rodriguez,
O.C.D., rev. ed. (Washington: Institute of Carmelite Studies, 1991). All subsequent
references to works by John of the Cross are found in the Collected Works.
48 John of the Cross, Living Flame o f Love, Prologue 3.
49 John of the Cross, Ascent o f Mount Carmel 1.4.4.
50 Ibid. 1.3.6.
51 Ibid. 1.1.3.

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great penances, fasts, and various devotional activities. Because a secret

pride, spiritual greed, and complacency often accompany these activities,
John writes of a God-given night of the senses whose hallmark is aridity.52
According to John, this phase is the start of the mystical life. Nothing
neither God nor creaturesconsoles the person. This night causes both a
painful awareness of God and the dreadful feeling of not serving God well.
This God-given purgation prods the person to become more interior by
restricting the activity of the intellect, memory, imagination, and will. In
short, the person can no longer meditate, an activity that previously brought
much joy. Both the aridity and the fear of having gone astray cause the
person intense suffering during this period. This dark night requires that the
enamored soul53 place all thoughts, imaginings, desires, and feelings into
a cloud of forgetting so as to walk the way of naked faith.54 Paradoxically,
during purgative contemplation the person may also delight in remaining
alone in a simple, loving awareness of God. The delicate, experiential
knowledge flowing from this love may not be obvious at first. John therefore advises patience and an unconcern with meditation during this surface
dryness. The advancing contemplative is now like an owl looking at the
noonday sun.
John maintains that at this stage of the mystical life advanced contemplatives experience horrific suffering that resembles that of purgatory.55
In Johns view, in this life souls are purged and cleansed with a dark,
loving spiritual fire; in the afterlife, by a dark, material fire!56 John
insists, moreover, that here on earth one is cleansed and illuminated only
by the fire of loving wisdom, which are touches of the divine that signal
the beginning of the perfection of the union of love for which the soul
hopes.57 However, one should not expect to receive such sublime touches
of Gods love without having been purified through great trials.
The irony is that, for John, infused contemplation is nothing else than a
secret and peaceful and loving inflow of God, which, if not hampered, fires
the soul in the spirit of love.58 The fire and thirst of love59 is the Holy
Spirits love flooding the soul, which seeks only to heal and to complete
persons so that they may reach out divinely to the enjoyment of all earthly
and heavenly things, with a general freedom of spirit in them all.60 What
should be experienced as a gentle and delightful burning of the soul in
52 John of the Cross, Dark Night 1.8-14.
53 John of the Cross, Ascent o f Mount Carmel 2.15.4.
54 Ibid. 2.1-5.
55 John of the Cross, Living Flame o f Love, stanza 1.25. See also Dark Night
2.12.1-6; 2.20.5; 2.6.6.
56 John of the Cross, Dark Night 2.12.1.
57 Ibid. 2.12.2.
58 Ibid. 1.10.6, emphasis added.
59 Ibid. 2.13.4.
60 Ibid. 2.9.1.

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the Holy Spirit, however, is transformed into the excruciating dark nights
of the senses and of the spiritan earthly purgatorybecause of the contemplatives disorder, sinfulness, and miserly love.61
Although John complains that the agonies of the dark night of the spirit
are so numerous and burdensome that he lacks the time and energy to
describe them fully,62 his depiction of this night remains unrivaled. The
passive dark night of the spirit both completes the purgation of the senses
and further deepens the contemplatives transformation by intensifying
the awareness of his or her imperfections and sinfulness. Like brilliant
sunlight shining through a dirty window, the divine inflow throws into
sharp relief the contemplatives least flaw and fault. Past and present sins
stand out in their total perversity to torture the person. The contemplative
is seized by a powerful conviction of having been rejected by God, of being
unworthy of any love, of not expecting any more blessings but only ongoing
suffering. All creatures and friends seem to have abandoned him during this
period. Even the consoling words of an expert spiritual guide have no impact
because the contemplative is convinced that no one understands him.
The contemplative seems to come close to death through her sufferings.
John writes that purgative contemplation so disentangles and dissolves the
spiritual substanceabsorbing it in a profound darknessthat the soul at
the sight of its miseries feels that it is melting away and being undone by a
cruel spiritual death.63 It is as if she were experiencing the very pains of
hell, although this is, in fact, an extremely meritorious, earthly purgatory.64
Insofar as sin and imperfection have become an actual part of the contemplatives being, they must be dissolved. To be totally efficacious, the dark
nights may last many years. From time to time, God will relieve the contemplative through consoling gifts. Yet, because something is still lacking
in the contemplative, one experiences even in the midst of consolations
the haunting presence of a sleeping enemy on the brink of awakening. The
fullness of this night is undoubtedly the greatest suffering possible on earth.
In Johns opinion, not many contemplatives attain the fullness of purgation and transformation. But for the blessed few who do, he maintains that
neither old age nor illness causes their deaths. He contends that the death
of such persons is very gentle and very sweet, sweeter and more gentle than
was their whole spiritual life on earth. For they die with the most sublime

61 Ibid. 2.9.11. The English hermit Richard Rolle (1290-1349) teaches something
similar when he writes of the abnegated person: If he were thrown into the fire of
hell he would not burn! For he has completely extinguished the seductions and
delights of life which come to him from outside (Richard Rolle, The Fire o f Love,
trans. Clifton Wolters [Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin, 1972] chap. 8).
62 John of the Cross, Dark Night 2.7.2.
63 Ibid. 2.6.1.
64 Ibid. 2.6.6.

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impulses and delightful encounters of love.65 This, in my view, is analogous to the postmortem passage from purification to eternal life.
The Purgatorial Consciousness of Marie of the Incarnation

The Relation o f1654, the spiritual autobiography of Blessed Marie of the

Incarnation, a French Ursuline mystic and the first woman missionary to
the New World, offers another example of an earthly purgatory that has
ramifications for understanding the postmortem one.66 The autobiography
gives convincing evidence that only someone who has passed through all
the mystical stages and attained spiritual maturity could have written it.
Moreover, the explanation of Maries 13 states of prayer do not fit the
classical pattern of mystical ascent as purgation, illumination, and union.
Finally, when she was in her 40slong after mystical marriage, filled with
so gentle and sweet a fire67she suffered yet another eight years of mystical purgation, an anomaly because transformation union is usually recognized as the summit of the mystical life.68
The slumbering disorders of her lower nature reawakened and brutally
assaulted her. Temptations to blasphemy, immodesty, and pridecoupled
with a strong sense of being the vilest and most debased of Gods creatures
surprised her. Debilitating lassitude, anger toward community members,
and fear that past blessings were only diabolical delusions led to suicidal
inclinations.69 All the faults and imperfections committed since mystical
union, which before seemed like nothing to me now seemed horrible in
light of the infinite purity of God who demanded exact reparation for all I
had experienced.70 One evening she felt an evil spirit penetrating her very
marrow and nerves to destroy and annihilate [her],71 which she vanquished
by her graced humble submission to Gods will. Even confidence in her
most trusted spiritual directors and confessors vanishedone of the classic
signs of the dark night of the spirit.
65 John of the Cross, Living Flame o f Love, stanza 1.25.
66 Marie of the Incarnation, The Relation of 1654, in Marie o f the Incarnation:
Selected Writings, ed. and trans. Irene Mahoney, O.S.U. (New York: Paulist, 1989)
41-178. All subsequent references to Marie are to the Relation. She writes of 13
states of prayer; I refer to them by the ordinal number followed by the chapter
number and page number in Selected Writings.
67 Seventh State XXII, 82.
68 Marguerite Porete, a 14th-century Beguine, wrote that there are two other
stages . . . which God gives that are greater and more noble than this [mystical
marriage] (Marguerite Porete, The Mirror o f Simple Souls chap. 118 [New York:
Paulist, 1993] 191). However, even Porete does not teach of dark nights after transforming union.
69 Eighth State XXXV, 103.
70 Twelfth State LII, 142.
71 Eighth State XXXV, 105.

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THEOLOGICAL STUDIES

The Holy Spirit revealed how cunning her corrupt human nature was in
hiding her sins and imperfections. She came to realize that only Gods light
could illuminate the skewed nooks and crannies of her soul to purify, heal,
and transform it. The Spirits presencewhich previously had been that of
embracing lovenow became a sword that divides and cuts with subtle
sharpness,72 which Marie called a honing purgatory. This is a purgatory, she writes, more penetrating than lightninga sword that divides
and cuts with subtle sharpness. In this purgatory, however, one never loses
sight of the Sacred Word incarnate.73 Yet, the Spirits subtle and penetrating thrusts into her spirit never reached the souls center, where God
is master. The experience of God leaving this center for a while hurled her
into an intolerable void, in which are born those despairs which would
like to throw body and soul into hell.74
Paradoxically, this spiritual dereliction was experienced only as a punishment to be endured, and not as something that ensnares and leads to
immoral conduct. Moreover, except for brief periods of Gods seeming
absence, Marie always experienced an intimate peace in the souls center.
What I was suffering, she wrote, was contrary to the state that his divine
Majesty maintained at the center of my soul.75 The trials ended, the
garment of darkness vanished, and peace came flooding into her soul.
Maries unconditional love of the cross was an integral aspect of her
espousal and trinitarian mysticisms that culminated in the state of the
despoilment of the soul, the state of victim, and true and substantial spiri
tual poverty.76 She had once received a vision of a magnificent building
constructed of crucified bodies. Some of the crucified had only their legs
pierced; others were crucified at the waist; still others, their entire bodies:
But it was only those who were entirely attached [to the cross] who bore it
willingly.77 Marie belonged to the latter group, but as an apostolic mystic
whose inner and outer life bore all the marks of the spiritual poverty of a
victim of love for the salvation of souls.
RECENT VIEWS OF PURGATORY

Most contemporary Christiansboth those who accept and those who

reject purgatoryimagine it as a demi-hell established by divine justice, a
place between heaven and hell, where those who have died are punished
for a length of time proportionate to the number and quality of the sins for
which they have made insufficient reparation. In recent years, however,
many thinkers have not only rejected or ignored this view of purgatory but

72 Twelfth State LII, 142.

74 Twelfth State LII, 143.
76 Thirteenth State LXV, 171.

73 Ibid.
75 Thirteenth State LVIII, 156.
77 Eleventh State XLVII, 130.

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883

also have come to understand it in vastly different ways. From these numerous recent scholars,78 several seem to have attracted the most attention: C. S.
Lewis, Karl Rahner, and theologians who emphasize the unfinished persons
encounter with God, or the Holy Spirit, or Christ. I chose these thinkers
because they confirm the teaching of the mystics that the earthly purification
process caused by intrinsic resistance to the divine influx is analogous to the
postmortem purifying and transforming encounter with the Holy.
C.S. Lewis's View of Purgatory

Because C. S. Lewiss down-to-earth view of purgatory is so often mentioned in popular literature, it deserves mention here.79 Confessing that he
prays spontaneously and inevitably for the dead, Jack (as his friends
called him) was often ridiculed by his colleagues. He retorted: What kind
of God would forbid us to mention our loved ones to him?
Rejecting the Romish understanding of purgatory, Lewis focuses on John
Henry Newmans Dream o f Gerontius. At the foot of Gods throne, the saved
soul demands to be removed from the Holys presence to be cleansed.
And if God said to it: 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, . . . would that person still
not plead to be taken away in order to be scrubbed clean and to change clothing?

Even if God told him it would hurt, Lewis contends that he presumed as
much, given tradition and the fact that suffering in this life has often done
him real good. However, suffering, in his view, is not purgatorys purpose. The dentists chair is his favorite image.
I hope that when the tooth of life is drawn and I am coming round, a voice will say,
rinse your mouth out with this. This will be purgatory. The rinsing may take longer
than I can now imagine. The taste of this may be more fiery and astringent than
my present sensibility could endure. But . . . it will not be disgusting and unhallowed.

As attractive as Lewiss images and analogies are, they are still far from
capturing the suicide-inclining suffering mystics undergo from the intense
awareness of their sinfulness.
Karl Rahner's Understanding of Purgatory

The pioneering work of Karl Rahner creatively transposed Roman

Catholic views on purgatory by underscoring its anthropological
78 For an excellent summary of more approaches to purgatory, see William J.
LaDue, The Trinity Guide to Eschatology (New York: Continuum, 2004).
79 C. S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer (New York: Harcourt,
Brace, & World, 1964) 108-9. My following remarks come from here.

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THEOLOGICAL STUDIES

foundations.80 The human person, in his understanding, is one human

being, self-conscious and free, with a unity of origin and goal, yet inwardly
pluralin short, a plural unity with a multifaceted nature. Whenever the
one complex human being, consisting of many levels, attempts to love God
totally and the neighbor as self, resistance is encountered from the unin
tegrated realities of the persons beingfrom a learned and unlearned
tangle of emotions, from the id, from the subconscious, from an unruly
imaginationto the inclinations fostered by deliberately and semideliberately formed habits. That the self is at war with the self is evident.
Rahner also maintains that even the most interior sin embodies itself and
alters the persons bodily, physiological, emotional, and spiritual constitution.81 The penalties of sin,82 as the tradition calls them, are in Rahners
view the objectifications or embodiments of sin, which contradict the
persons integral structure. The temporal punishments due to sin, the reatus
poenae, are the consequences intrinsic to sin, the indication that sin gives
birth to its own punishments. In other words, they are the connatural
results, the repercussions,83 the incarnations of evil decisions that are
not simply annihilated by conversion and repentance. This means that, at
death, most people surrender as imperfect beings to God, to Christ, and to
the saints.
Rahner emphasizes that the punishments of sin, the unintegrated realities of the person, neither cease at death nor are they simply eliminated by
Gods fiat. Purification in purgatory is an aspect of death itself, a lengthy
process of integrating all the plural elements of ones being around ones
fundamental option for God. The persons complex plural unity, consisting of several levels, cannot be integrated in one stroke. Purgatory, in
Rahners view, is the total and painful integration of the person in and
through deathnot after death.84 The painful consequences of sin underscore the difference between what a person is and should bewhich purgatory eliminates. The diverse depth and intensity of the sufferings in
death are the time one spends in purgatory. The whole reality of the
damaged person must be integrated into a new and fundamental decision
in order for all to be forgiven. In short, purgatory is an aspect of death
80 Karl Rahner, Purgatory, Theological Investigations 19, trans. Edward Quinn
(New York: Crossroad, 1993) 181-93.
81 Karl Rahner, Guilt and Its Remission: The Borderline between Theology and
Psychotherapy, Theological Investigations 2, trans. KarlH. Kruger (Baltimore:
Helicon, 1963) 265-81, at 271.
82 Karl Rahner and Herbert Vorgrimler, Penalties of Sin, Dictionary o f Theology,
2nd ed., trans. Richard Strachan et al. (New York: Crossroad, 1981) 369-70, at 369.
83 Karl Rahner, Penance, Encyclopedia o f Theology: The Concise Sacramentum
Mundi (New York: Seabury, 1975) 1187-1204, at 1204.
84 Rahner and Vorgrimler, Satisfaction, Dictionary o f Theology 461.

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885

itself, which, in Rahners view, does not necessarily coincide with medical death.85
Because Rahner understands the human person as spirit-in-world, he
disagrees with the traditional belief that the soul at death becomes acosmic,
i.e., that it goes somewhere not of this world. When the soul surrenders its
limited bodily structure at death, it becomes pancosmic, all-cosmic, even
more open to Gods one creation, more deeply connected to creation, more
radically spirit-in-world, and a codetermining factor of the universe itself.86
This theory does not mean that the world then becomes the individual
souls body or that the soul is now omnipresent. It signifies, in Rahners
view, that the essence of the human spirit is to be related to the world, to
actualize matter, even after death. Although Rahner moved away from his
pancosmic theory later in life, he never accepted Thomas Aquinass view of
the separated soul and emphasized that this present earthly body is simply
the way spirit relates to this world now, a relationship that endures even
after death.
Purgatory, the maturing of the one person in and through death, has
another aspect. The person remains spirit-inworld. After the freed soul
surrenders its limited bodily structure, it experiences more clearly and
acutely its own harmony or disharmony with the objectively right order of
the world. The person, as spirit-in-wor/d, experiences just how much his
sinful decisions have injured the world. It is both surprising and disappointing that Rahners thinking about the cosmic dimension of purgatory has
been neglected. Paul speaks of the groaning of creation (Rom 8:22) and
the new creation in Christ (2 Cor 5:17). Peter calls attention to the new
earth (2 Pet 3:13). More than one mystic has cried out in wonder and
asked why creation did not annihilate him or her.
Greshake and Kng: Purgatory as the Postmortem Encounter with God

One of the first theologians to change the course of Roman Catholic

thinking on eschatology was Gisbert Greshake, emeritus professor of the
Albert-Ludwig University of Freiburg. His book Strker als der Tod produced a flurry of praise and criticism because, in essence, it reduces all
eschatology to God. In his view, purgatory is nothing more than the persons postmortem encounter with God.87
85 Karl Rahner, The Life of the Dead, Theological Investigations 4, trans.
Kevin Smyth (Baltimore: Helicon, 1966) 347-57; and Rahner and Vorgrimler,
Intermediate State, Dictionary o f Theology 247-48.
86 Karl Rahner, On the Theology of Death, trans. C. H. Henkey (New York: Herder,
1961) 19-21.
87 See Gisbert Greshake, Strker als der Tod: Zukunft, Tod, Auferstehung, Himmel,
Hlle, Fegfeuer (Mainz: Matthias-Grnewald, 1976) 92-93.

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THEOLOGICAL STUDIES

In line with this approach, Hans Kng also writes of purgatory as a

dimension of the imperfect persons humiliating, painful, and purifying
encounter with God, in the wrath of his grace. For Kng, purgatory is
the encounter with God in the sense that it judges and purifies, but also
liberates and enlightens, heals and completes man.88
Gnilka, Nicholas of Cusa, and Pope Benedict XVI:
Purgatory as the Postmortem Encounter with Christ

The approach to purgatory took a christological turn with the groundbreaking work of German exegete Joachim Gnilka. The testing fire found
in 1 Corinthians 3:10-15, he argues, is no fire at all, but the coming Lord.89
It is instructive, however, that the 15th-century mystic Nicholas of Cusa,
commenting on this same passage and on Hebrews 12:29, writes of Christ as
the purest fire, the spiritual fire of life and understanding that consumes
all things and takes all things into itself and so proves and judges all things,
as the judgment of material fire, which tests all things. All rational spirits
are judged in Christ, just as every thing flammable is judged in fire.90
The scholarly views of a theologian who becomes pope necessarily
attract attention. When Joseph Ratzinger, the Regensburg University professor, published his book on eschatology,91 it was well receivedfor the
most part. But when, as Pope Benedict XVI, he promulgated the encyclical
letter Saved in Hope (Spe salvi), which contains the same understanding of
purgatory as that in his book, theological circles became more attentive.
According to Ratzinger, if one views 1 Corinthians 3:10-15 christologically,
Christ himself is the judging fire who transforms and conforms us to his
own glorified body. In the transition from death to eternal life, Jesus
purging fire frees our closed-off heart and renders us capable of perfect
union with God, Christ, and the entire communion of saints.92
Both the Apostle Peter and Ignatius of Loyola are examples of earthly,
purgatorial encounters with Christ. After a night of fruitless fishing, Peter is
instructed by Jesus to set out into the deep to lower the fishing nets. On
seeing the huge catch of fish, Peter fell to his knees and said to Jesus,
Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord (Lk 5:8). At the time of
88 Hans Kng, Eternal Life?: Life after Death as a Medical, Philosophical, and
Theological Problem, trans. Edward Quinn (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1984) 139.
89 Joachim Gnilka, Fegfeuer II: Lehre der Schrift im Neuen Testament, Lexikon
fr Theologie und Kirche, 3rd ed., cols. 50-51, at 51.
90 Nicholas o f Cusa: Selected Spiritual Writings, trans. and intro. H. Lawrence
Bond, pref. Morimichi Watanabe (New York: Paulist, 1997), On Learned Ignorance
3.9.233-34; 3.9.191-92.
91 Joseph Ratzinger, Eschatology: Death and Eternal Life, 2nd ed., trans. Michael
Waldstein, ed. Aidan Nichols (Washington: Catholic University of America, 1988).
92 Ratzinger, Eschatology 229, 232.

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the Passion, when Jesus looked at Peter just after the betrayal, Peter
remembered Jesus words, and he went out and wept bitterly (Lk 22:62).
When Jesus cooked breakfast for Peter and other disciples, he asked Peter
three times whether he loved him. To this purifying questioning, Peter
replied painfully, Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you
(Jn 21:17).
When Ignatius was recuperating from his war wounds at Loyola, the
Virgin Mary holding the child Jesus appeared to him, and he later wrote:
He felt so great a loathsomeness for all his past life, especially for the deeds of the
flesh, that it seemed to him that all the images that had been previously imprinted
on his mind were now erased. Thus, from that hour until August 1553, when this is
being written, he never again consented, not even in the least matter, to motions of
the flesh.93

This meeting with the Holy, Jesus and Mary, purified him of much from his
past life.
Although some scholars have embraced Ratzingers view of purgatory as
the postmortem encounter with Christ, his emphasis on the entire communion of saints has been undeservedly neglected. I suggest that one comes
face-to-face with ones embodiments of sin not only vis--vis God and
Christ but also vis--vis the members of Christs mystical body. As stated in
1 Corinthians 6:2, the saints will judge the world. Just as mystics suffer
not only from their resistance to Gods loving influx during the dark night
of the soul but also from the painful misunderstanding of their spiritual
fathers and from their often cruel treatment at the hands of community
members, relatives, and friends, so persons in purgatory will meet those
they wronged in this life and become aware of the injury they did to those
still living on earth. As one Jesuit wisely said: Im not afraid to meet
Christ. I do fear my embarrassing encounter with St. Ignatius. It is both
disappointing and surprising that little thinking has been done about the
communion of saints in connection with purgatory.
In Spe salvi, Benedict XVI insists that most people possess in their hearts
an essential openness to truth, to love, to God. The concrete compromises of their lives, however, have covered this openness with much filth.
When they appear before Christ, their foundation will endure but they
will suffer loss and be saved, but only through fire (1 Cor 3 :14-15).94
The pope then expounds the theological opinion that the fire which
both burns and saves us is Christ himself, the Judge and Savior in such a
93 Ignatius of Loyola, A Pilgrims Journey: The Autobiography of Ignatius of Loyola,
trans. Joseph N. Tylenda, SJ. (Wilmington: Michael Glazier, 1985) nos. 10,16.
94 Benedict XVI, Spe salvi no. 46, http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_
xvi/encyclicals/documents/hf_benxvi_enc_20071130_spe-salvi_en.html (accessed
July 14, 2012).

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THEOLOGICAL STUDIES

way as to make clear that he is convinced of its truth and recommends its
adaption by the faithful.
The encounter with Christ is the decisive act of judgment. Before his gaze all
falsehood melts away. This encounter with him, as it burns us, transforms and frees
us, allowing us to become truly ourselves. . . . 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.95
The pope also insists that no one lives alone. No one sins alone. No one is
saved alone.96
CONCLUSION

Abandoning a legalistic view of purgatory as a place of torture located

between heaven and earth in favor of understanding purgatory as an
encounter with Jesus Christ, or God, or the Holy Spirit and with the mystical body and the cosmos that purifies and transforms the multidimensional
social person that we are has many advantages. First, the encounter notion
is faithful to the churchs defined teachinganchored in the practice of
praying for the deadthat the cleansing fires of purification exist
for all who die in Gods friendship but are still imperfectly purified.97
Second, it comprehends the cleaning fires as the dark, loving spiritual
fire of the Holy Spirit, Christ, the communion of saints, and also creation
itself. Third, it shifts the theological discourse away from extrinsic, legalistic, and mythological terminology to intrinsic, personalistic, and more pastorally useful categories. Fourth, a creative synthesis of the views of the
thinkers cited in this article could provide a theological, pneumatological,
christological, anthropological, and cosmological foundation for a contemporary and orthodox understanding of purgatory. Fifth, this approach
has already born ecumenical fruit. Anglican exegete N. T. Wright has
embraced the views of Rahner and Ratzinger.98 Some Lutheran scholars99
and Evangelicals100 have expressed more openness to current Roman

95 Ibid. no. 47.

96 Ibid. no. 48; see also nos. 53-54, 56.
97 Catechism o f the Catholic Church (Washington: US Catholic Conference,
1994) nos. 1030-32.
98 N. T. Wright, Surprised by Hope (New York: HarperOne, 2008) 169-70.
99 See The Hope o f Eternal Life: Common Statement o f the Eleventh Round of
the U.S. Lutheran-Roman Catholic Dialogue, ed. Lowell G. Almen and Richard J.
Sklba (Minneapolis: Lutheran University, 2010).
100 Brett Salkeld, Can Catholics and Evangelicals Agree about Purgatory and the
Last Judgment? (New York: Paulist, 2011).

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Catholic thinking on purgatory. Sixth, the fruitfulness of this line of thinking underscores that the writings of the Christian mystics can and should be
used as serious theological sources. Finally, few Christians would disagree
with Paul when he writes: I am confident of this, that the one who began a
good work among you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ
(Phil 1:6).

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