Separation From God The Greatest Torment Of Purgatory--
Wherein Purgatory Differs From Hell.
All pain is the consequence of original or actual sin. God
created the soul perfectly pure, and gave it a certain instinct
for happiness which forces it toward him as its true centre.
Original sin enfeebles this instinct in the soul at the
beginning. Actual sin diminishes it still more. The more this
instinct diminishes the worse the soul becomes, because God's
grace to the soul is withdrawn in proportion.
All goodness is only by participation in the goodness of God,
which is constantly communicated, even to those creatures which
are deprived of reason, according to his will and ordinance. As
to the soul endowed with reason, he communicates his grace to it
in proportion as he finds it freed from the obstacle of sin.
Consequently, when a guilty soul recovers in a measure its
primitive purity, its instinct for happiness also returns and
increases with such impetuosity and so great an ardor of love,
drawing it to its chief end, that every obstacle becomes to it an
insupportable torment. And the more clearly it sees what detains
it from union with God, the more excessive is its pain.
But the souls in purgatory being freed from the guilt of sin,
there is no other impediment between God and them but this pain
which prevents the complete satisfaction of their instinct for
happiness; and they see in the clearest manner that the least
impediment delays this satisfaction by a necessity of justice:
thence springs up a devouring fire, like to that of hell,
excepting the guilt.
This guilt constitutes the malignant will of the damned, which
obliges God to withhold his goodness from them; so they remain in
a fixed state of despair and malignity, with a will wholly
opposed to the divine will.
{271}