Uncle Sid and Aunt Ethel, Like Gods

I read David Mills' column on converting evangelical Protestants to purgatory using C.S. Lewis (“If C.S. Lewis Went to Purgatory, He Wasn't Surprised,” April 27-May 3).

Before I was halfway through, I immediately conceived an important addendum.

As Mills noted, Lewis regarded purgatory as quite rational. “I believe in purgatory,” Lewis declared, because “our souls demand purgatory.” Commented Mr. Mills, “Our souls demand purgatory because we do not want to be let into heaven in such rotten shape. … We want to be cleaned up, even if it hurts.”

I take friendly issue with that royal “we” because it is a “we” too royal to apply to most of us. In another sense, however, it is not royal enough.

Most of us do not want to be cleaned up precisely because we are convinced that we are not dirty, and part of our blindness is that we've no idea of the blinding-white cleanliness that eternal holy bliss demands. Our souls would indeed demand purgation, even if it hurts, if we were blessed either with the recognition of our own rottenness or an inkling of heaven's unbearable splendor. But, alas, we are poor middling creatures.

Therefore, on behalf of the lukewarm and the less-than-honest, those of us with great beams in our eyes in regard to the actual state of our own character, those of us who shy away like bats from the searching light of self-examination but who have eyes like eagles for the faults of others — in short, those who are like me rather than like Lewis — I offer another, less royal road to purgatory.

Even though it is quite difficult to realize that we need to be cleaned up, most of us have no trouble at all with the recognition of the dirt smudging everyone else's soul. We see it all too clearly, and a sure way to grasp the great necessity of purgatory is to imagine yourself to be the gatekeeper of heaven, suddenly in charge of the eternal destinies of all those who approach. You have only two choices: either send them into heaven, where they will experience unimaginable bliss for eternity or send them to hell, where they will suffer unimaginable torment for eternity.

Your first day on the job and who should show up but one of your coworkers, Fred, the generally friendly but irritating office gossip. To the flames? Into eternal bliss? He isn't really evil; he's more like a slightly grating noise that, while not loud, distracts and agitates until it seems to fill the room. With Fred, forever, in heaven? The thought makes you shudder.

And isn't that your neighbor Heather Finwinkle? Oh, what a hell heaven would be if you had to listen to her drone on and on about her petty problems, world without end. That tedious, whining voice! That theatrically doleful look of hers, continually glancing to see if you're properly sympathetic! An eternity next to her? You can't even stand being next door!

And here comes Uncle Sid and Aunt Ethel, the ruin of every family gathering! Should they be let into heaven as is? An eternity like last Thanksgiving? Or the Christmas before last, decked with their same old fights, deep-rutted grievances and fingernails-on-thechalkboard peccadilloes poisoning the holiday air? A few hours with them twice a year feels like an eternity. You break out into a cold sweat.

A horrifying exercise, isn't it? What does it reveal?

If we are really honest about other people, we would not want them in heaven. We rightly grasp that nearly everyone we know is an unfit companion for eternity. We can't really consign them to eternal torment, yet with their annoying habits, tangle of little vices, tiresome concerns, tedious self-absorptions and lack of depth, we'd like to excuse ourselves politely from them and live forever on the far side of paradise.

Now we're ready for the painful part of our imaginative exercise. If we could be really honest about ourselves, we would realize that we are one of those people for someone else, perhaps nearly everyone else.

We are the ones who would spoil someone else's eternity because we are not fit companions. We, too, are fit neither for heaven nor hell and are just as blind to that fact as all the others — didn't we presume that we, the gate-keepers in the above exercise, would also walk through the pearly gates as is?

Fit neither for hell nor heaven. A quite apt description for most of the human race. It is not only that we are, if truth be known, riddled with rot of a thousand petty sins. Even more, we are not profound enough, deep enough of soul, majestic enough in vision and character to be an object of sustained interest to anyone for very long, let alone for eternity.

We have, so it seems, the need of a third place, a place not only of cleansing of even the most petty and irritating of sins but also a place of profound transformation. In regard to the latter, we may return to C.S. Lewis, who once remarked that, if we were by some grace to be brought face to face with a resurrected human being straight from heaven, our first and most natural response would be to fall down in worship and awe-filled fascination. Such is the greatness to which we are called that we would naturally mistake this resurrected being — luminous and terrible, glorious in feature, effulgent with blinding joy and depthless wisdom — to be a god.

Fred, luminous? Heather, glorious? Uncle Sid and Aunt Ethel, become like gods? Let us hope and pray that it be so, for the only other alternative is hell — and that goes for us as well.

So we are back with Lewis, demanding “purgatory because we do not want to be let into heaven in such rotten shape. … We want to be cleaned up, even if it hurts.”

We add, however, that it is not just that we should want the dirt taken off, but even more, that we desire to be transformed and have divinity put on. In heaven, we are not only clean but also “partakers of the divine nature,” superhumanly happy because we enter “into the glory of Christ and into the joy of the Trinitarian life” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, No. 1721), a far more royal ending to our journey than we could imagine.

Benjamin Wiker writes from

Steubenville, Ohio.