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The Church’s teaching on purgatory finds a solid foundation in scripture, which also speaks of the practice of praying for the dead. This purification is entirely different from those in hell who suffer eternally the pained anguish of being separated from God and his love it is not “hell-lite” ( CCC 1031). This process of purification is called “purgatory,” in which we are transformed and purified in a way that may be experienced as suffering, but “it is a blessed pain, in which the holy power of his love sears through us like a flame, enabling us to become totally ourselves and thus totally of God” ( Spe Salvi, 47). Only if healed and purged of impurities can we enter into that life which is blessed communion with God, rejoicing in his infinite goodness. Because heaven is a place of pure holiness, this impurity of sin must necessarily be removed from the soul to enter. But such persons are still in the friendship of God. Meanwhile, some people die burdened with lesser or venial sins, imperfections and failures which wound love and mar spiritual life. When someone dies in mortal sin, that is having deliberately acted in a way that now separates them from God, that separation continues after death, a state which is called hell. In fact, if one is “in” purgatory, they can rejoice because they are on their way to heaven ( CCC 1030). Furthermore, while some have objected to the concept of purgatory, properly understood it should not be that controversial. In fact, purgatory is not so much a location as it is a temporary state of being or process. In the popular imagination, purgatory is thought of as a place not unlike a waiting room. Any discussion on the Last Things – death, judgment, heaven and hell – is incomplete without taking up the matters of purgatory and “limbo.”