On Monday we celebrated All Souls Day. It marks the beginning of a month the Church dedicates to praying for the holy souls in purgatory.

Q. What is All Souls Day?

A. It is the one day in the year that the Church specifically sets aside to pray for her children who have died and who are yet to enter heaven since they are still expiating for their sins in purgatory.

Q. Take me slowly... Yet to enter heaven? Expiating? Purgatory...?

A. Ok. So. St John writes that nothing unclean can enter heaven, that is, nothing with sin or an inclination to sin (i.e. a vice).

Sin is taken away from us, is dissolved or absolved by God's merciful forgiveness.

Jesus says sins can be forgiven either in this world or in the next (cf Mt 12:32).

For the souls already in heaven, they do not need forgiveness: they already are in heaven. For those in hell, they cannot be forgiven: they are already in hell where they have put themselves beyond God's forgiveness. There then must be a third place in the next world where sins can be forgiven. This place Christians refer to as purgatory (from the word "purge").

Q. And what kind of purging goes on in purgatory?

A. Well, whenever we are forgiven a sin, a certain disorder or tendency remains e.g. if I usually go out and get drunk and I mention that in Confession, my sin will be forgiven. However, when I step out of the Confessional, I will still have an inclination towards getting drunk again. I cannot enter heaven with that inclination; it must be rectified either here on earth (through me learning the virtue of temperance) or else in purgatory. Both options are painful. The second more than the first.

The same applies for all other sins e.g. of pride (thinking about myself too much), of lust (adultery, fornication, masturbation, pornography), of impiety (praying only on Sundays), of laziness (not helping or correcting people around me), etc. If any sin is repeated long enough it creates a habit, an inclination, a tendency, a predisposition, a vice. These must be purified or purged before I can enter heaven.

3rd November 2015