Let Us Speak of Purgatory… Among Brothers and Sisters

 A Catholic-Anglican reflection on the purifying meaning of God’s love

By Fr. Miguel A. Bruchmann

There are truths of the faith that can only be understood when seen through the tenderness of God, rather than through human fear.

One of these is purgatory—a word that for centuries has evoked images of fire, punishment, or waiting, yet in its deepest meaning speaks of mercy, hope, and transformation.

Scripture does not give us a detailed map of the afterlife, but it does offer glimpses that point toward a greater mystery.
Saint Paul writes that each person’s work “will be revealed with fire,” and that some “will be saved, but only as through fire” (1 Cor. 3:13–15).
The Second Book of Maccabees shows a people praying for the dead, convinced that their prayer may help free them from their sins (2 Macc. 12:44–46).
And in the Gospel of Matthew, we hear of sins that “will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come” (Matt. 12:32).

These are flashes of light that illuminate a certainty: salvation is not closed at death, but in the fullness of love.

The Fire that Purifies is Christ Himself

In reading Pope Benedict XVI, we find words that help us approach this mystery without fear.
He wrote that “the fire which purifies is Christ Himself, the Judge and Saviour.”

This fire is not punishment, but encounter: the moment in which the soul stands before the absolute truth of Love and, in that light, is purified of all that was not love.

The theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar expressed this with an even more tender image:

“The soul is pierced by the gaze of Christ. There is no greater pain, yet no sweeter consolation.”

Thus, rather than a place or a span of time, purgatory may be understood as the burning embrace of divine love that heals and transforms.
It is mercy that does not rest until we are fully free to love.

 The Anglican Perspective: Growth in Love

Within the Anglican tradition, purification after death is often understood as a process of growth in love—a maturation of the soul that continues beyond the veil.

For this reason, the practice of praying for the departed is retained: not as a means of earning merit, but as an act of communion and a trusting surrender to God’s mercy.

Reading C. S. Lewis, we find a simple and luminous image.
He once suggested that if we wash our face before visiting a friend, why should we not also be cleansed before coming into the presence of God?

Perhaps that is, in essence, purgatory: the final preparation, the loving act that makes us ready for the encounter.

The Anglican–Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC II), in its document Salvation and the Church (1987), affirmed that differences in language regarding this purification “should not obscure our shared hope that God will complete in his people the work of sanctification begun in Christ.”

It is also important to clarify—in fidelity to Article XXII of the Thirty-Nine Articles—that this understanding does not contradict Anglican teaching.
We are not speaking of the purgatory of later medieval abuses, associated with indulgences or human merit, but of the soul’s interior purification in the love of God.
The Article rejects distortions of doctrine and practice, not the hope that the Lord continues His work beyond death.

Beyond Names

We may call it purgatory, final sanctification, or the consummation of Christ’s love.
The name matters less than the truth it seeks to express: God does not abandon His work unfinished.

A soul that dies in grace, yet still marked by imperfection, passes through a fire of mercy that does not destroy, but purifies.

Heaven is perfect communion; purgatory—if we use that word—is the luminous threshold where the soul learns to love without measure.
There is no fear here, but promise.
For the God who walks with us along the way does not leave us at the boundary of death:
He brings to completion the work He has begun in us (Phil. 1:6).

We need not imagine what that fire of divine love is like; rather, we may ask what in us would need to be burned away:

pride, fear, wounds, attachments, resentments not yet surrendered.

Perhaps purgatory begins even now—each time love wounds us, and in wounding, heals us.

I invite you to share your own reflection in the comments:
What do you think God would purify in your heart today, if you allowed it to be set ablaze by His mercy?

“The love of God does not only forgive—it transforms.”

— Fr. Miguel A. Bruchmann