The First Means of avoiding Purgatory is manifestly to remove the cause which sends us there, which is sin. It may not be easy to refrain from all sin, even the smaller sins, but every ordinary Christian can, by the frequent use of the Sacraments, easily abstain from mortal sin.
The Catholic Church holds that "all who die in God's grace and friendship but still imperfectly purified" undergo a process of purification, which the church calls purgatory, "so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven".
According to the church, only God knows the exact amount of time a person must spend in purgatory before attaining a state of purity. It's assumed, however, that the severity of one's punishment will be directly proportional to the severity of the crime.
In its traditional form, however, it has not been understood as a second chance for salvation after death, but rather, only as chance for postmortem transformation and purging for persons who die in grace. Nevertheless, it is often popularly understood as a second chance to obtain salvation.
We can avoid Purgatory living a holy life, staying away from sin, confessing our sins regularly, having the Holy Eucharist in a state of grace and practicing works of Mercy, especially having a devotion to the Holy Souls in Purgatory.
The souls in purgatory are called “holy” because they can sin no more and are guaranteed to enter heaven eventually; they are called “poor” because they cannot help themselves in their current state and can do nothing to lessen its pain or duration.
Lust. The final terrace of Purgatory is that of Lust. Here Dante and Virgil meet Guido Guinizzelli and Arnaut Daniel, both lyric poets, and an intense, purging fire that cleanses the souls in this terrace.
Dante's version of Purgatory is extraordinarily detailed and, in some key respects, strikingly original. First, he imagines Purgatory as being divided up into seven terraces, each one corresponding to a vice (in the order that Dante sees them: Pride, Envy, Wrath, Sloth, Avarice and Prodigality, Gluttony and Lust).
Under Catholic belief, after confessing and being absolved of sin, the indulgences granted reduce the amount of time one spends in purgatory, where one's sins are weighed after death.
Some modern speculation also includes Luke 16:19–16:26 as support for the concept of purgatory, but through the ages the Church has taught that the rich man has received his final judgment, and the text itself refers to a chasm which may not be crossed.
Nonetheless, the Church has always encouraged fervent prayer for those suffering in purgatory because our prayers help to alleviate their suffering. Our response, then, should be to simply pray with fervor, and let God take care of the details!
Two effective ways to pray for the souls in purgatory are praying the Divine Mercy chaplet for them and remembering them in your Rosary intentions. The Divine Mercy Chaplet and Rosary require a time commitment of approximately 10 and 20 minutes.
At the shores of Purgatory, Dante and Virgil meet Cato, a pagan who was placed by God as the general guardian of the approach to the mountain (his symbolic significance has been much debated).
Among Christians, the biblical warrant for purgatory is contested. Supporters of the Roman Catholic belief cite biblical passages in which there are intimations of the three major components of purgatory: prayer for the dead, an active interim state between death and resurrection, and a purifying fire after death.
Divided into three sections, Antepurgatory, Purgatory proper, and the Earthly Paradise, the lower slopes are reserved for souls whose penance was delayed.
The Catholic Church teaches that after death there is a state of Purgatory. This is a place where some people who have sinned are purified in a 'cleansing fire', after which they are accepted into Heaven. The idea of a purifying fire has its biblical basis in scripture. Corinthians tells of a fire that will save.
The Roman Catholic Church teaches that there is a place where sins are punished and a soul is purified before it can go to Heaven. This is called Purgatory .
Purgatory is a purification of love. Those who undergo this final cleansing after death have indeed died in the love of God, but that love is not yet perfect. More specifically the holiness of these souls may be tarnished by unforgiven venial sins, evil inclinations or temporal punishment due to sin.
As the first vice punished in Purgatory, pride is the most serious of the forgivable sins. As punishment for pride, penitents have to carry such heavy weights that their heads are bent down, rendering them unable to challenge anyone with their defiant eyes.
In Purgatory, the souls of the monsters are fated to prey on each other for eternity. It appears that when a monster soul dies in Purgatory, they are dead for good. There are estimated to be 30-40 million souls in Purgatory.
Those who were in purgatory will have already been purged, meaning they would have already been released into heaven, and so like those in heaven and hell will resurrect with their bodies, followed by the Last Judgment.
The Limbo of the Fathers is an official doctrine of the Catholic Church, but the Limbo of the Infants is not. The concept of Limbo comes from the idea that, in the case of Limbo of the Fathers, good people were not able to achieve heaven just because they were born before the birth of Jesus Christ.
7 Days of Prayers for the Souls in Purgatory. O Lord God omnipotent, I beseech Thee by the Precious Blood, which Thy Divine Son, Jesus shed in the Garden, deliver the souls in purgatory and especially that one which is the most forsaken of all, and bring it into Thy glory, where it may praise and bless Thee for ever.
Purgatory refers to the purification process of all attachments we still have when we die. Ideally, we would go through the process of purification here on Earth, before death, so as to enjoy Divine Union here and now.