275. The Eucharist and Purgatory
275. THE EUCHARIST AND PURGATORY
If the Eucharist is the offering of Christ’s sacrifice, and if this has infinite merit and power to forgive all sins, does that mean that no one who receives the Eucharist while in a state of grace will have to experience any punishment for sin in Purgatory? If not, how can sin’s guilt be totally purged by this sacrament and yet the need for Purgatorial punishment remain?
Whether the entire punishment due to sin is forgiven through this sacrament?
This sacrament is both a sacrifice and a sacrament. It has the nature of a sacrifice inasmuch as it is offered up, and it has the nature of a sacrament inasmuch as it is received.
Through the power of the sacrament, it produces directly that effect for which it was instituted. Now it was instituted not for satisfaction (for sins) but for nourishing spiritually the union between Christ and His members . . . But because this union is the effect of charity, from . . . which man obtains forgiveness, not only of guilt but also of punishment, hence it is that as a consequence and by concomitance with its chief effect, man obtains forgiveness of the punishment—not of the entire punishment but according to the measure of his devotion and fervor.
But in so far as it is a sacrifice, it has a satisfactory power. Yet . . . although this offering suffices of its own quantity to satisfy for all punishment, yet it becomes satisfactory for them for whom it is offered, or . . . for the offerers, according to the measure of their devotion, and not for the whole punishment (III,79,5).
The purpose of Purgatory is to completely internalize, in your own individual soul, what Christ has completely accomplished in objective reality in His Passion. Nothing at all is lacking in Christ’s work and in its extension in the Eucharist objectively, in itself. It has total and infinite power to forgive sins. The only thing lacking is the measure of our personal, subjective appropriation of it. To whatever degree that is lacking, Purgatory completes it.
The Eucharist prepares us for Purgatory by plunging us into Christ’s Passion sacramentally. In Purgatory our own passion (suffering) will be perfectly united with Christ’s. That is why according to St. Catherine of Genoa, in her Dialogues on Purgatory, even though its pains will be very great, its joys will be even greater. It will be like taking off filthy rags and putting on Christ’s white robe. Like childbirth, the pain will be great but it will be swallowed up in the joy.
When St. Thomas speaks of the Eucharist from the perspective of objective reality—and its objective reality is Christ Himself sacrificed and offered to the Father for our salvation—he says its power to forgive all punishment for sin is unlimited.
(“Forgiveness”, by the way, is not merely a subjective mental attitude in one person toward another. It is a real transaction, a changed objective relationship. It is remission of a debt. The debt is forgiven. It has been paid by Another and we need not pay it ourselves. We are free.)
But when St. Thomas speaks of the Eucharist from the perspective of our own personal reception of the sacrament, he notes that we do not obtain remission (forgiveness) fully if our charity and devotion is not full. We drink the living Water, and are made really clean by it, not just legally clean; but only in proportion to how much we open the faucet of our faith and love. In other words, although the sacraments work ex opere operato, i.e., from the working of the God Who is at work in them rather than from our own subjective devotion as the efficient cause of their grace, yet, though we cannot originate that grace, we can limit its effects or frustrate it by the weakness of our faith and hope and love That is why we need Purgatory: to fulfill the prayer “Lord, I believe, help my unbelief.”
We do not know how many of us will need Purgatory (though the saints usually say it will be most of us), because we do not know the point at which our faith and love is enough to bypass that need, and it is not helpful to ask that question. Much better to keep our eyes on Christ rather than on ourselves.