Back to Purgatory Pt. 2: Purgatory, New England-Style
Just because we didn’t have enough fun with our prior purgatory posts, I relate this from Mass today ... I missed part of the homily. David is just on the far side of potty training and when he says, "Daddy, I have to go potty," we go. Meanwhile, our visiting priest was elaborating on various elements of Catholic doctrine. Kris later recalled the priest's description of purgatory (roughly quoted/paraphrased, but the word "crud" was indeed central). Keep in mind that the following quote is my recollection of what Kris recalled of what the priest said.
"Purgatory in Vermont is a cow barn. Now, you're looking up at the main farmhouse and saying, 'that’s where I want to go Jesus.' And Jesus says, 'you're not ready to meet my Father yet, first you gotta go to the cow barn.' And he brings you in there, and there are a bunch of other people, and tools on the walls. And Jesus tells you to go get him the long-handled wire brush. And you say, 'okay, what do I do to get to God’s house?' And Jesus says, 'just stand there and I'm going to clean the crud off you, so you can meet my father.' See, you've sinned and been forgiven for your sins, but the crud still sticks to you. So Jesus starts using the brush, and you say, 'Jesus, this hurts,' and he says, 'I know, but I’ve got to get the crud off you.' And he keeps working until you're clean."
The priest had the whole parish in stitches. For those of you who have actually spent time in a cow barn ... does the metaphor hold up? Evocative or just odd?
"Purgatory in Vermont is a cow barn. Now, you're looking up at the main farmhouse and saying, 'that’s where I want to go Jesus.' And Jesus says, 'you're not ready to meet my Father yet, first you gotta go to the cow barn.' And he brings you in there, and there are a bunch of other people, and tools on the walls. And Jesus tells you to go get him the long-handled wire brush. And you say, 'okay, what do I do to get to God’s house?' And Jesus says, 'just stand there and I'm going to clean the crud off you, so you can meet my father.' See, you've sinned and been forgiven for your sins, but the crud still sticks to you. So Jesus starts using the brush, and you say, 'Jesus, this hurts,' and he says, 'I know, but I’ve got to get the crud off you.' And he keeps working until you're clean."
The priest had the whole parish in stitches. For those of you who have actually spent time in a cow barn ... does the metaphor hold up? Evocative or just odd?
posted by Ernesto at 9:03 PM
5 Comments:
I grew up on a farm, and we had a hundred or more cattle. Still, the priest's analogy doesn't do much for me. Humerous, yeah, but not all that insightful. Not for me, anyway.
Yeah, the part about the wire brush loses me. Seems more like something for cleaning barbecue grills than cows (or people). The part where he says "Jesus, it hurts" would be funny if he didn't know it was Jesus scrubbing him with a wire brush.
Anyway, I think it supports my contention that the whole "get cleaned to meet God" thing is hard to imagine. Sin and the "crud" of life are so bound up in our hearts and lives that it makes more sense that it is all vanquished and banished by the atonement and simply burns away in entry to heaven and the presence of God. The more of yourself you have submitted to Jesus, the more of you survives in the presence of God. The part of you that is not submitted is basically just dross. The gold is refined, the dross burns away. The gold feels no pain and the dross has no life to begin with.
rick: I think your description of sin being "vanquished and banished" after death upon entry into heaven is a legitimate Catholic understanding of purgatory. There is no literal time in purgatory, after all.
But regarding the gold/dross analogy, there is one problem: we are not cold and unalive, like gold. We are living! It hurts here on earth when we struggle to become holier and build lives oriented to virtue. It especially hurts when we've become attached to certain sins and we scrape off those attachments. Purgatory after earth is just an extension of that process of growing in holiness.
My concern with the purgatory concept probably relates to a lack of trust in the Catholic institution, or any institution, when it claims an exclusive "window into heaven." If purgatory is merely the soul's refinement upon death that we all endure, then no problem. If the idea is that prayer is unbound by time and we can pray for our ancestors as well as the fellow next to us in the pew, I can stretch my once-psychedelically-enhanced mind around that. But if the church claims some kind of exclusive sway over this phase of afterlife, and can monetarily engage or morally threaten the living on behalf of the departed, then it seems like a lot of power to invest in an institution that has not always wielded its power wisely or well.
I think Dev said it just right, Rick. What your metaphor ('Sin and the "crud" of life are so bound up in our hearts and lives that it makes more sense that it is all vanquished and banished by the atonement and simply burns away in entry to heaven and the presence of God.') shows it that even when somebody is trying to imagine a process minus purgatory, he ends up inventing purgatory.
As regards your follow up, the Church doesn't claim to control whether someone chooses to accept or reject God, choose heaven or hell, or determine how willing someone is to part with the sinful elements of his nature.
Finally, for the record, I don't quite get the cow barn thing either. Seems like some accuracy of language was sacrificed for folksiness, maybe for the benefit of possible fall leaf peeping tourists? Anyway, shows how hard it is to do metaphor and analogy really well, and in contrast, demonstrates how amazing the parables are!
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