Purgatory?

IMO, Inferno is a good place to start. If you look into some Catholic teachings as well, since they're the one Christian faith (heck, one of the only faiths!) that actively teaches the idea, you may get some good ideas there, too. Maybe visit a priest and "interview" him on purgatory.

I grew up Catholic, so I have been exposed to said teachings, and Dante's version isn't too far off. Just a place of nothingness, devoid of light but not left in total darkness, and personally, I see ghostly people just wandering around for eternity. Not happy, not sad, just there.

(But yes. Go with the priest thing. ;) )

I agree with WiccanRaven - it's a neutral "holding" place for souls until the last judgement - not punishment but also not in the presence of god. Dante's a good starting place. So if you died not in a state of grace -had venial sins - you went to purgatory. Really good mortal sins condemned you.

I grew up catholic and asking teachers about purgatory got the party line (see above) and some stammering followed by "article of faith" heh!

Seemed a very boring place.

karen

I'm catholic but I havent been taught much about anything actaully. Could be quite interesting, at times.

What I have read, is that your Limbo is the place boring place of dead babies and children, and your "Purgatory" is the place with the painful but wonderful spiritual fires cleansing the soul before the final destination, aka the Beatific Vision.
So either way really.

I will, however not withhold my opinion, that all people, elect or common, can see that the deliberate malice and pride of the Trikuxion against the Cruxian Church caused countless systems and governments to fragment, into anarchy and furthermore into war

In Catholic Theology, if you die in a state of unrepentant, unforgiven mortal sin, you go straight to Hell. If you have asked forgiveness for all of your sins, you go to Heaven, but may spend some time in Purgatory first. This is because your sins, though forgiven, may still have left a mark on your soul and it needs to be cleansed before entering the glory of God. Basically, the last stains of sin are "purged" from the soul. This purging gives rise to the name Purgatory. Traditionally, Purgatory is envisioned as a place of fire. Similar to Hell, but not as bad because you know that you'll get to Heaven eventually. Also, Dante wrote two other works related to Inferno: one dealing with Purgatory and the other dealing with Paradise. (I believe they are called Purgatory and Paradise, respectively.)

I would say that any Purgatory setting would require the purging of souls function. Outside of that, feel free to exercise creative license.

In Catholic Theology, if you die in a state of unrepentant, unforgiven mortal sin, you go straight to Hell. If you have asked forgiveness for all of your sins, you go to Heaven, but may spend some time in Purgatory first. This is because your sins, though forgiven, may still have left a mark on your soul and it needs to be cleansed before entering the glory of God. Basically, the last stains of sin are "purged" from the soul. This purging gives rise to the name Purgatory. Traditionally, Purgatory is envisioned as a place of fire. Similar to Hell, but not as bad because you know that you'll get to Heaven eventually. Also, Dante wrote two other works related to Inferno: one dealing with Purgatory and the other dealing with Paradise. (I believe they are called Purgatory and Paradise, respectively.)

I would say that any Purgatory setting would require the purging of souls function. Outside of that, feel free to exercise creative license.

Sorry about the double post.

Except Limbo doesn't exist any more and was never really official teaching of the Church. It just became sort of accepted though out the years.

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Maria
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A Promise Unfulfilled '06

"…therein is in writing the constant joy of sudden discovery, of happy accident." H.L. Mencken

I'm not totally wedded to Church doctrine, I'm just looking for inspiration. But that's good to know.

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Limbo is a teaching that I actually didn't even know about until my brother went to CCD, which was 8 years after I did. (He's 14 now, if that gives you an idea.) The way it was taught, Purgatory is where all souls were gathered if they were unbaptized, Pagans who were still okay in god's eyes, and those who have only had menial sins (basically, those that didn't make it into Dante's levels of hell).

I also wasn't taught the idea of spiritual fires, but it would make sense, seeing that it is a "purging" thing. I believe I was taught that they just wait for Jesus' second coming, and those who were worthy went to heaven while those who weren't were sent to hell.

But then again, it's been years since I've been Catholic, so my thoughts may not be credible in this day and age. :) Best bet would be to discuss the history of Purgatory with a practicing priest.

A couple variations I've heard:

Purgatory is kind of like the "mud room" of Heaven. Suppose you come inside and you're covered in mud and grass stains and there are a bunch of cuts you don't feel and somebody tells you that, say, the President is waiting to talk to you. You'll probably want to change your clothes and take a quick shower - and that's just meeting another human! If you're going to be face to face with God, and all of the mud and grass and blood is entirely your fault and was entirely avoidable, you'd want to have that removed first. I think Protestants tend to use an image of all of that being "covered over" - Catholics just have it "washed off".

The other example I've heard is metal plates being scoured of their rust. That has to be an unpleasant experience, but in order for the plates to look their best and serve their function, the rust has to go, and the plates "sing" as they're scoured, just like the souls in Purgatory sing with joy that they're going to enter Heaven just as soon as their sins are scoured off.

So, perhaps different people perceive Purgatory in your story slightly differently? Someone who expects flames gets them, someone who expects to be scrubbed and scoured is, and so on?

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Try searching New Advent - the Catholic Encylcopaedia. That'll go into WAY too much theological detail, if I know that particular source. heheh. Enjoy.

Here's to the creation of meaning.

Not to be snarky or totally obvious, but Dante didn't write just the Inferno: there's a Purgatory and Paradise, too. I recommend his Purgatory; if you don't have time to read it, read Dorothy Sayers' introduction to it. Very good stuff.

First-time ScriptMo(?) 2008
Title: TeleCouriers, Inc
Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Comedy

Sort of Ayn Rand meets X-Men. But funnier. And different.

If you've read Inferno, you've only read Dante's depiction of Hell. Move on to the next part of the Divine Comedy called Purgatory and you''ll really get a lot of ideas. I found Purgatory (Purgatorio) much more vivid than Inferno. He starts at the bottom of a mountain and after a few scenes and interactions with the arch-angel Michael begins the ascent of various rings leading to heaven. I found the description of what happens when a persons purgation is completed and they are allowed to move on to heaven fascinating.

Dante's "Inferno," or Hell, is book I of a three book story about the afterlife called The Divine Comedy. Inferno doesn't discuss purgatory. But Book II is "Purgatory". Book III is "Paradise."

Acc. to Dante, Purgatory is a place in time (Hell and Heaven are in eternity.) Purgatory is a mountain that reaches to the gates of Heaven. It is a place of light and peace, but also work. The people there are protected at night from evil, and they rest while it is dark. They do their work in the daylight. Their work is being refined from some category of sin. But unlike the people in Hell, the people in Purgatory know their final destination is Heaven. They labor cheerfully, knowing that they are being refined. There are seven levels to Mount Purgatory, and they go up to the next level when they decide they are ready. Ditto at the top, when they are ready to enter Heaven. The people in Hell, however, are in eternity. Hell is dark, stinking, noisy and claustrophobic.

Dante is apparently right on the money in terms of orthodoxy. This is his story about two people (Dante and Vergil) who travel through the afterlife. (Well, Vergil can't go to Paradise, he's a pagan. Beatrice takes over as guide in Heaven.)

So to get more info on the doctrine of purgatory, it would probably be very helpful to research Catholic sites online. There's a Catholic encyclopedia online, I know.

Good luck with your story. And be encouraged. Dante was telling a great story in the Divine Comedy.

Hypothetical Protestant theology suggests that if Purgatory does exist, it's really more like Limbo. To a Protestant, this place might be most like a place where dead souls can just hang out between the time they die and the time of Christ's second-coming.

I'd recommend C. S. Lewis' [i]The Great Divorce[/i] for a (reasonably) more modern visualisation of the whole Hell-Purgatory-Heaven thing. If I were going to be really nit-picky I'd point out that it's a state of being, not a physical location, but I don't think that would make for a very good plot... ;-)

I had a great professor in college who described purgatory like this: Imagine that you have died and you meet Jesus face to face. In his eyes, you see he knows everything you ever did and everything you avoided doing. Still, the look in his eyes is full of love. Being human, seeing that love and knowing what we know, it is hard to keep eye contact, so we look away. Jesus puts his hands to our face and turns us toward him. No matter how often we turn away, he is patient, gently turning us back, until we can look in his eyes, see his great love, and look back with great love and without shame or guilt.

As far as a description goes? I'm partial to the bar scene in the first Star Wars movie--that smoky way-station where creatures from all over the galaxy are gathered, each waiting for their own ride. It's a raucous noisy place in my imagination.

Shannon