From: JLOUX@UCONNVM.UCONN.EDU (Jon Loux)
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.christia
Subject: Hell and Purgatory
Date: 28 Sep 92 16:30:47 GMT
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I posted this to another list a while back.  Some here may find it
interesting in light of the current discussion on Purgatory.

Jon.

Subject:      It's all in how you look at it

Date:         Wed, 22 Jul 1992 08:34:47 EST

A while back I mentioned something about the difference between
redemptive and vindictive suffering as viewed in the Middle Ages.  I
alluded to a footnote in the Divine Comedy by Dorothy L. Sayers (the
footnote, that is).  Somebody asked me to post it.  I dug it up this
weekend and am posting it, along with a brief commentary (I like that.
I commentary on a commentary on the Divine Comedy).

I hope you find it thought provoking.

Jon.

                           Hell and Purgatory
                    A Reflection on Spiritual Growth
                             July, 1992


         "...Purgatory is not related to Hell as Borstal is to Dartmoor:
no intrinsic difference is made between remedial and retributive
punishment.  The pains of Purgatory are in themselves very like those of
Hell, and some of them are but little lighter. The penitent Proud, like
the impenitent Hypocrites, ceaselessly walk their appointed round bowed
down by heavy weights; the penitent Lustful, like the impenitent
Heretics, endure the torment of fire and heat immeasurable by earthly
standards.  The sole transforming difference is in the mental attitude
of the sufferers.  Dante has grasped the great essential which is so
often overlooked in arguments about penal reform, namely, the prime
necessity of persuading the culprit to accept judgment.  If a man is
once convinced of his own guilt, and that he is sentenced by a just
tribunal, *all* punishment of whatever kind is remedial, since it lies
with him to make it so; if he is not so convinced, then *all*
punishment, however enlightened, remains merely vindictive, since he
sees it so and will not make it otherwise.  It has been well said by a
great saint (St. Catherine of Genoa) that the fire of Hell is simply the
light of God as experienced by those who reject it; to those, that is,
who hold fast to their darling illusion of sin, the burning reality of
holiness is a thing unbearable.  To the penitent, that reality is a
torment so long and only so long as any vestige of illusion remains to
hamper their assent to it: they welcome the torment, as a sick man
welcomes the pains of surgery, in order that the last crippling illusion
may be burned away.  The whole operation of Purgatory is directed to the
freeing of the judgment and the will.  Hell is the fleeing deeper into
the iron-bound prison of the self-for the damned also, after their
manner, seek their own torment:

                                                  ...the fire
                   Of heavenly justice stings and spurs them so
                   That all their fear is changed into desire.
                                               (Inf. iii 124-6)

Purgatory is the resolute breaking-down, at whatever cost, of the prison
walls, so that the soul may be able to emerge at last into liberty and
endure unscathed the unveiled light of reality.  To this end:

                                  ...heavenly justice keeps desire
                   Set toward the pain as once 'twas toward the sin.
                                                    (Purg. xxi 65-6)

There is no difference in the justice; the only difference is in the
repudiation or acceptance of judgment.

         "The accusation of cruelty, so often urged against the
Purgatorio as well as against the Inferno, is therefore without meaning
or relevance.  Whether in Hell or in Purgatory, you get what you want-if
that is what you really do want.  If you insist on having your own way,
you will get it:  Hell is the enjoyment of your own way for ever.  If
you really want God's way for you, you will get it in Heaven, and the
pains of Purgatory will not deter you, they will be welcomed as the
means to that end.  It must always be remembered that for Dante, as for
all Catholic Christians, man is a responsible being.  The dishonoring
notion that he is the helpless puppet of circumstance or temperament,
and therefore not justly liable to punishment or reward, is one which
the poet over and over again goes out of his way to refute. That is why
so many of the "sermons" in the Purgatory deal with the subject of Free
Will.  When every allowance is made (and Dante makes generous
allowance), when mercy and pity and grace have done all they can, the
consequences of sin are the sinner's-to be borne, at his own choice, in
a spirit of sullen rebellion or of ready acquiescence."

         (The Comedy of Dante Alighieri, Cantica II, Purgatory;
Translated by Dorothy L. Sayers; Penguin Books; Viking Penguin Inc.; New
York, New York; 1955; Introductory notes by Dorothy L. Sayers; p16ff.)

Comments:

         Until a person *wants* to change, they cannot *be* changed.
This simple spiritual law in a mustard seed shell defines the difference
between hell and purgatory.  To him who has ears, let him hear.  And
step one of any 12 steps program is: We admitted we were powerless
over....  Repentance rings the same note: Repent, for the kingdom of
heaven is at hand.  And behold.  I stand at the door and knock.  If any
man hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in.  All of these
propositions rest firmly on the attitude of the recipient for success or
failure.

         The fallacy of the so called "sign up or send up" courtroom
verdicts resides precisely here.  Perhaps you have heard of misdirected
juvenile delinquents who stood before a judge and were given two
options: go to jail or enlist.  The assumption being that four years in
the army might change a man.  Kevin Costnar as Robin Hood allowed that
years of war and prison may change a man.  Indeed they may.  But only if
that man is willing to be changed.  Without it, so many years in
purgatory are just so many years in hell.

         I wonder of the so called sign up or send up crowd, how many
graduated to become alcoholics, wife beaters or child abusers?  How many
of their children became drug users and suicidal?  My 1950's depression
born and war forged family had no serenity.  And where did the
rebellion, anger and frustration of the 60's come from, anyway?  One
generation hands on the baton to the next.

         You cannot legislate morality, much less spirituality. The Son
of Man came to seek and to save.  And we can see His face in all of our
suffering.  All of our trials.  If we work through our trials with faith
and the assurance of redemption, then it is the face of grace.  If we
buck against our trails and our suffering with self righteousness and
rebellion, then it is the face of judgment.  In both cases the suffering
is the same.  We are the ones who make it redemptive or vindictive.

         In my own spiritual pilgrimage, it was not until I faced up to
the reality of what I was that I began to change.   Not until I, with
honesty and acceptance, took a moral inventory of my own soul.  Not
until I was able to say; The prisoner in this bone cage is my own heart.
My own feelings.  My own sins.  None other's.  The tears on my cheek are
mine.  The sobs in my breast belong to me.  The ache in my mind and
emotions bespeaks a deep rent and breach in no other person than myself.

         Not until I looked inward and beheld and embraced the nine
circles of my own hell did I begin to ascend and encompass the seven
cornices of my own purgatory.
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