Let us reflect today on the souls in Purgatory

The following excerpt is taken from chapter 8 of My Catholic Faith! :

As we celebrate the Memorial of All Souls, we reflect on our Church teaching on Purgatory:

The suffering of the Church: Purgatory is a doctrine of our Church often misunderstood. What is Purgatory? Is this the place we must go to be punished for our sins? Is it God's way of bringing us back for the wrong we have done? Is it the result of God's wrath? None of these questions really answer the question of Purgatory. Purgatory is nothing other than the ardent and purifying love of our God in our life!

When someone dies in God's grace, they are most likely not 100% converted and perfect in every way. Even the greatest of the saints would more often than not leave some imperfection in their life. Purgatory is nothing more than the final purification of all remaining attachments to sin in our lives. By analogy, imagine that you had a cup of 100% pure water, pure H 2 O. This cup will represent Heaven. Now imagine you want to add to that cup of water but all you have is 99% pure water. This will represent the holy person who dies with only some slight attachment to sin. If you add that water to your cup, the cup will now have at least some impurities in the water as it mixes. The problem is that Heaven (the original 100% H 2O cup) cannot contain impurities. Heaven, in this case, cannot have even the slightest attachment to sin in itself. Therefore, if this new water (99% pure water) is to be added to the cup, it must first be purified of even that last 1% of impurity (attachment to sin). This is ideally done while on Earth. This is the process of becoming holy. But if we die with some attachment, then we simply say that the process of entering into the final and complete vision of God in Heaven will cleanse us of any remaining attachment to sin. Everything can already be forgiven, but we may not have detached ourselves from those forgiven things. Purgatory is the process, after death, of burning the last of our attachments so that we can enter Heaven 100% free from all things to do with sin. If, for example, we still have a bad habit of being rude or sarcastic,

How does this happen? We do not know. We just know that it does. But we also know that it is the result of God's infinite love that frees us from these attachments. Is it painful? More likely. But it's painful in the sense that letting go of any disordered attachments is painful. It's hard to break a bad habit. It is even painful in the process. But the end result of true freedom is worth all the pain we may have felt. So yes, Purgatory is painful. But it is a kind of sweet pain that we need and it produces the end result of a person 100% united with God.

Now, as we are talking about the Communion of Saints, we also want to make sure we understand that those who are going through this final cleansing are still in fellowship with God, with those members of the Church on Earth and with those in Heaven. For example, we are called to pray for those in Purgatory. Our prayers are effective. God uses those prayers, which are acts of our love, as instruments of his grace of purification. It allows and invites us to participate in their final purification with our prayers and sacrifices. This creates a bond of union with them. And no doubt the saints in heaven especially offer prayers for those who are in this final purification as they await full communion with them in heaven.

Lord, I pray for those souls who are going through their final purification in Purgatory. Please pour out Your mercy on them so that they can be freed from any attachment to sin and, therefore, be ready to see you face to face. Jesus I believe in you.