The Catechism in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz) - Day 140: Purgatory and Hell (2026)

Episode Date: May 20, 2026

Why do purgatory and hell exist? The Catechism teaches us today about the existence and the meaning of purgatory and hell. We learn that purgatory is a transitional state of purification while hell is the state of permanent separation from God. Fr. Mike reminds us that nobody drifts into heaven because “we cannot be united to God unless we freely choose to love him.” Today’s readings are Catechism paragraphs 1030-1037. This episode has been found to be in conformity with the Catechism by the Institute on the Catechism, under the Subcommittee on the Catechism, USCCB. For the complete reading plan, visit ascensionpress.com/ciy Please note: The Catechism of the Catholic Church contains adult themes that may not be suitable for children - parental discretion is advised.

Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz, and you're listening to the Catechism in a Year podcast, where we encounter God's plan of sheer goodness for us, revealed in scripture and passed it down through the tradition of the Catholic faith. The Catechism in a year is brought to you by Ascension. In 365 days, we'll read through the Catechism of the Catholic Church discovering our identity and God's family as we journey together toward our heavenly home. It is day 140. We're reading paragraphs 1030 to 1037. As always, I'm using the Ascension edition of the Catechism, which includes the foundations of faith approach. But you can follow along with any recent version of the the Catechism of the Catholic Church. You can also download your own catechism in your

your reading plan by visiting ascensionpress.com slash CIY. And you can also click follow or subscribe in your podcast app for daily notifications. Just a one quick note. Thank you for all those who have supported the production of this podcast with prayers and your financial gifts. Couldn't do this without you at all. So thank you so much. We made it here today, 140, which is just incredible. We're talking today about two big topics, right? Both purgatory or the final purification as well as hell. Now, it's interesting that Purgatory has three paragraphs and hell has, I think, five paragraphs. And so it's remarkable because they're kind of big topics. But we're going to hear about this. We're going to hear that

in paragraph 1030, all who die in God's grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation. But after death, they undergo purification. So as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven. In paragraph 1030, there is a quick definition, essentially, of what we believe that you've died in God's grace and died in God's friendship, but still are imperfectly purified. There are attachments, things we're holding on to that can't come with us into heaven, or even just our hearts aren't big enough for heaven, or even like this, our love isn't true enough for heaven. And we'll talk about that in a sec. So there's a process, and the process is purification. And so the church gives the name purgatory

to that final purification of the elect, which is entirely different from the punishment of the damned. That's going to be really, really important. Now, that's based on sacred scripture. And this might be one of those big days for some people like, okay, finally we're going to hear about purgatory. Yeah, we're going to hear three paragraphs. But we are going to hear some of the places that the data for purgatory comes to us through sacred scripture. That's things like 1 Corinthians chapter 3, verse 15. That's 1st Peter 1, chapter 1,000, where it talks about that there's a final purification. There's a cleansing fire talked about in 1st, 315 in 1st Peter 1 7. There's also 2 Maccabees chapter 12 which talks about how it is a good and noble

thing to pray for the dead. So we're talking about that today. We're also talking about hell. And the reality, of course, we can choose hell. In paragraph 1033, it says, we cannot be united with God unless we freely choose to love him. But we cannot love God if we sin gravely against him, against our neighbor or against ourselves. And that's just the reality, right? This we get what we've chosen. As we keep saying the last few days, that Jesus Christ has made it possible for us to actually choose heaven by his grace. And yet, if I don't choose that, if I, if I don't choose, freely choose to love God by obeying his commandments, by loving my neighbor and by even, you know, loving myself, essentially, then that is what it is to die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God's

merciful love. And that means being separated from him forever by our own free choice. And the church says in paragraph 1033, this state of definitive self exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called hell. We talked about the definition of heaven yesterday. And that's union with God and communion with the Blessed Virgin Mary and all the saints and all the angels. That's heaven. But the state of definitive self exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called hell. And that's so important. And I mean, every one of those words, I just want to say it one more time, the state of definitive self-exclusion. I've done this to myself permanently from communion with God and the blessed is called hell. We're talking about this today.

And so it sends big topics. Again, we've been talking about big topics. I don't know for roughly 140 days. But we're asking the Lord to be with us to open our hearts, open our minds, to be able to just understand what is this purification that God wants in my life and my heart? And what is this place that God does not want any of us to choose this definitive self-exclusion from his love? This definitive self-exclusion from his kingdom. He doesn't want us to choose this. So let's just call upon our Heavenly Father in heaven.

We praise you. We give you glory. We thank you for the grace that you've given us through your son, Jesus Christ. We thank you for the grace of purification. We thank you for the fact that you give us the opportunity in death even to be purified, the purification you will for us in this life. we asked you please for all those who die today help them to choose you freely help them to choose your love freely help them to choose your kingdom freely and help us lord god like we prayed yesterday help us now at the hour of our death to choose you by your grace we ask our lady we ask all the saints and angels to please pray for us

now and at the hour of our death amen in jesus name we pray in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit amen today is day 140 we are in pears we are in Paragraphs 1030 to 1037. The final purification, or purgatory. All who die in God's grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation, but after death they undergo purification so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven. The church gives the name purgatory to this final purification of the elect, which is

entirely different from the punishment of the damned. The church formulated her doctrine of faith on purgatory. especially at the councils of Florence and Trent. The tradition of the church, by reference to certain texts of scripture, speaks of a cleansing fire, for example, 1 Corinthians 3, verse 15, and 1 Peter 1, 1, 1, Peter 1, verse 7. As St. Gregory the Great stated, as for certain lesser faults, we must believe that, before the final judgment, there is a purifying fire. He who is truth says that whoever utters blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will be pardoned

neither in this age nor in the age to come. From this sentence, we understand that certain offenses can be forgiven in this age, but certain others in the age to come. This teaching is also based on the practice of prayer for the dead already mentioned in sacred scripture. Second Maccabees chapter 12 states, Therefore, Judas Maccabias made atonement for the dead that they might be delivered from their sin.

From the beginning, the church has honored the memory of the dead and offered prayers and suffrage for them, above all, the eucharistic sacrifice, so that, thus purified, they may attain the beatific vision of God. The church also commends almsgiving, indulgences, and works of penance undertaken on behalf of the dead. St. John Christos said, Let us help and commemorate them. If Job's sons were purified by their father's sacrifice, why would we doubt that our offerings for the dead bring them some consolation? Let us not hesitate to help those who have died and to offer our prayers for them.

Hell. We cannot be united with God unless we freely choose to love Him. but we cannot love God if we sin gravely against him, against our neighbor or against ourselves. As the first letter of St. John states, He who does not love remains in death. Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. Our Lord warns us that we shall be separated from him if we fail to meet the serious needs of the poor and the little ones who are his brethren. To die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God's merciful love means remaining

separated from him forever by our own free choice. This state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called hell. Jesus often speaks of, Gehenna, of the unquenchable fire reserved for those who to the end of their lives refuse to believe and be converted, where both soul and body can be lost. Jesus solemnly proclaims that he will send his angels, and they will gather all evildoers and throw them into the furnace of fire, and that he will pronounce the condemnation depart from me you hurst into the eternal fire. The teaching of the church affirms the existence of hell and its eternity. Immediately after death, the souls of those who die in a state of mortal sin descend into

hell where they suffer the punishments of hell, eternal fire. The chief punishment of hell is eternal separation from God, in whom alone man can possess the life and happiness for which he was created and for which he longs. The affirmations of sacred scripture and the teachings of the teachings of of the church on the subject of hell are a call to the responsibility incumbent upon man to make use of his freedom in view of his eternal destiny. They are at the same time an urgent call to conversion. As Jesus stated, enter by the narrow gate, for the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to

destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow, and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few. Lumengencium states, Since we know neither the day nor the hour, we should follow the advice of the Lord and watch constantly so that when the single course of our earthly life is completed, we may merit to enter with him into the marriage feast and be numbered among the blessed, and not like the wicked and slothful servants be ordered to depart into the eternal fire, into the outer darkness, where men will weep and gnash their teeth. God predestines no one to go to hell. For this, a willful turning away from God, immortal sin, is necessary. and persistence in it until the end. In the Eucharistic liturgy and in the daily prayers of her faithful,

the church implores the mercy of God who does not want any to perish, but all to come to repentance. As we pray in the Roman Missal, therefore Lord we pray, graciously accept this oblation of our service, that of your whole family. Order our days in your peace and command that we be delivered from eternal damnation and counted among the flock of those you have chosen. Right? So there we are. That's day 140 paragraphs 1030 to 1037. As I said, just intense. It seems intense to me. When are we talking about eternal separation from God? This is something that we need to take so, so incredibly seriously. We'll get to that in just a second. But let's begin with purgatory. Let's begin with this purification. Again, keep this in mind. Purgatory is a transitional state, right? It's a process, right? It's purification. What we're saying is essentially, here is someone who has died in God's grace and friendship. This is so incredibly important. You know, what we believe about purgatory not only comes from sacred scripture about what happens after the dead, there's a purifying fire. We already referenced 1 Corinthians 315, 1, 1st Peter 1, verse 7. We also talked about 2nd Maccabees, where it's a good and noble thing, a holy thing to pray

for the dead. All those things are very, very good. We also recognize that what we believe about the human person has much to do with what we believe about purgatory, meaning this. What we believe as Catholics is that we're made in God's image or likeness, right? Yes, of course, we have this original righteousness with God, this original relationship. relationship, original holiness. And then when we had the fall, we are deprived of God's grace. We're deprived of that original holiness. We're deprived of that righteousness. But we do not become depraved. Now, there are certain branches of Christianity that would say, no, no, no, in the fall, we became depraved. And so what we need is we need this covering. We're imputed salvation, right?

Another way to say it is some people have said it like there's legal justification where the Lord God declares us justified because of his grace, because of what Jesus has done for us, that legal justification, we're not truly transformed inwardly, but externally, we're covered with the Lord, right? We've been clothed with Christ, which is, scripture says that. We've been clothed with Christ. Again, this is, this is not the Catholic view, but this salvation has been imputed to us, right? It's been, like, kind of covered over us. So Martin Luther is famously known to have said that, you know, human beings who are justified are like dung hills covered with snow. So underneath, we remain essentially wretched, but on the surface, you know, we've been.

covered with snow. So we've been clothed with Christ. So even though nothing deep down in my heart has been healed, has been transformed, has been renewed or restored, at the same time, I've been clothed with Christ. So when the father looks at me, he sees Jesus. He doesn't see me. And so because of that, you have this idea that like once saved, always saved, that you have this idea that nothing I can do can either take away my salvation or add to this, you know, sanctification or holiness. The Catholic view is different. The Catholic view is. is more like intrinsic justification, meaning it has to actually transform our hearts that we believe that we're not depraved, but we're deprived of the gifts of grace. So when we encounter grace,

right through the sacraments, we encounter grace in the ordinary ways, in extraordinary ways in the course of our lives, that we're called to cooperate with those moments of grace. We're called to cooperate with the movement of God himself. And the more and more we cooperate with them, the more we become like Jesus. More we enter into that salvation and sanctification. And the less we cooperate with that, the less we become like Jesus, the more we remove ourselves from salvation and sanctification. So this is the part that when it comes down to the, what happens after death, is you can see how someone, if they just believe, no, you've been clothed with Christ.

You know, you have justification that's been legally imputed upon you. Well, go right to heaven because there's no transformation that has to happen. But you can also see that in the Catholic worldview, if we're called more and more to truly become like Jesus, especially to enter into the presence of God himself, heaven. And if I die in God's grace and friendship, but I'm still clinging to my attachments, if I still don't love the way God loves, then something has to happen in me, right? Something has to be purified in me. My love needs to be purified. And so this is kind of like the background, the kind of the context of the setting for the recognition of here's this divergence in Christianity, essentially. From the very

beginning Christians prayed for the dead. I mean, you have even stories of St. Augustine in the first centuries of the church, St. Augustine, who talked about when his mother had died. And at one point, he and his brother were there by his mother's side as she was dying. And his brother said something along the lines of, you know, mom, we're going to, after you die, we'll bring your body home so make sure you're buried in your homeland. St. Augustine writes and says, my mom gave him this fierce look, you know, that she was so disappointed in him. She's, I don't care about where I'm buried. That doesn't matter to me. All that matters to me is that you, my sons, remember me at the holy sacrifice of the Mass.

Basically, all that matters to me is that you pray for me in the Mass. That was happening already at the very beginning here in the first centuries of the church that Christians were praying for the purification of their dearly departed loved ones through the Mass. And it wasn't until this break, right, with the Reformation, you have Luther and Calvin and Zwingli and all those folks who, who had this different view of justification, different view of what it is to be human, what it is to be Christian, that they got rid of the doctrine of purgatory. Of course, purgatory was more and more

explicated, as it says here in the councils of Florence and the Council of Trent. But it had been around ever since the very beginning, that notion that Christians would pray for the dead because there's this purification that has to happen. Let's say one last line on that one. You know, even my buddy, C.S. Lewis, he, as a Protestant, right, he's Anglican, he still believed in purgatory. And even he said this, he said, our souls demand purgatory, don't they? He said, imagine. You go to heaven and you're clothed in dripping rags and you're dirty and smelly. And they say, come on in. Just come on. Enjoy it. You know, this is the kingdom of the father, the son and Holy Spirit. Come in. You and say, yeah, but I don't feel I should change my clothes. Like,

no, we don't care about that here. Just come on in. You would say, ah, that's great that you don't care. All the same. I would like to get clothed. I would like to be purified. I would like to be cleaned because I want to be able to enter into this fully. That imagery is the imagery of, you know, my heart doesn't love God the way he should be loved. And this is the truth for probably almost every one of us listening. That hopefully you're in God's grace and his friendship right now. Hopefully if you've committed any mortal sins, you've gone to confession, had those moral sins forgiven by the grace of Jesus Christ. But we don't love God the way he deserves to be loved. And if we know that and we're honest with that, we realize something has to happen in my heart.

I don't love God beyond all things. I love God's gifts a lot. You know, I love God's creatures, but I don't know if I love the creator the way he deserves to be loved. And so purgatory is that place where not only are those attachments purified, but our hearts are made capable of loving God the way he is meant to be loved. And that's supposed to happen in this life. That's supposed to happen throughout the choices and our cooperation with God's grace in this life.

but if it doesn't happen in this life, then God gives us this incredible opportunity to have it happen in this process of purification, this place that we call purgatory. Now, all that being said, you know, we're already kind of going long today. I apologize because I don't want to skip over these last paragraphs on hell, but we already know this truth. We already know that Jesus often speaks of Gehenna, right? Jesus speaks more about hell than any other figure in the entire Bible. We have to understand this, that especially when people have this idea that, well, the God of the Old Testament is the God that I don't like. And the God of the New Testament is the God of the New Testament is a God of the God of the New Testament. It's God of mercy and of patience and peace. And that's a caricature. That's not actually true. Because when we dive deeply, we read in the Old Covenant, the Old Testament, how merciful and patient and good God is as well as just. But also in the New Testament, we realize not only only is Jesus, the Prince of Peace, not only is Jesus did he come to bring mercy and forgiveness to the world, salvation to the world, but also he speaks of hell and the possibility that we can turn away from God more than any other figure in the entire Bible. And to recognize, here is two things. I just want to highlight. Number one, we've already said this before in paragraph 1033. We cannot be united with God unless we freely choose to love him. And we cannot love God if we sin gravely against him, against our neighbor or against ourselves. This is so important. Remember, we said this yesterday.

It's one thing to desire heaven. It's another thing to choose heaven. And I have to, if I'm going to be in heaven, no one drifts into heaven. Jesus makes it so clear. He says, the gate is wide and the way is easy it leads to destruction. And those who enter by it are many. But the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life. And those who find it are few. We cannot drift to heaven. None of us can, ever, ever, ever. And we cannot be united with God unless we freely choose to love him. And if we don't freely choose to love him by sinning gravely against him or against our neighbor or against ourselves, we are de facto choosing hell. And to die in mortal soon without repenting and accepting God's merciful love means remaining separated from him forever by our own free choice.

And this is what it is to be in hell. In paragraph 1035, it says this, that the chief punishment of hell is eternal separation from God, and whom alone we can possess the life and happiness for which we are created and for which we long. And so we just, that's why we keep coming back to this place of vigilance. So keep coming back to this place of Jesus reminding us, watch and pray. Just watch and pray. We are all called like every single day to live in such a way that if I died today, I can enter heaven. How do I do that?

By loving God and my neighbor and doing what I know God's want me to do. And when I fall, when I fail, because we're going to fall, we're going to fail. I go back to confession. I go back to his merciful love. I go back to the God of mercy who, again, this is so important. The God who does not want any to perish, but all to come to repentance. Paragraph 1037 makes it so clear. God predestines no one to go to hell.

He wants everyone to come to heaven. He wants everyone to choose him. In order to go to hell, there's a willful turning away from God. That's necessary. And persisting in that until the end. So we keep praying. and I'm just honestly, when we're having these really serious topics,

it's so important that we realize, okay, this is my choice, not just someone else's choice, not just this is my family members or these people I love, this is my choice. I either get to choose heaven, life with God forever

because of what Jesus has done for us, or I get to drift to hell. And God doesn't want that for you, and God doesn't want that for me. So let us today, once again, renew our commitment to say yes to God. to love him, obey his commandments, and to take care of the little ones around us, to love our neighbor as ourself.

By God's grace, we can do this. By his grace, he's the one who made it possible. And so we just call upon his name and ask for his grace and his mercy once again to meet us in our brokenness and to meet us in our sin. I am praying for you. Please pray for me. My name is Father Mike. I cannot wait to see you tomorrow.

God bless.