Heaven, Hell & Purgatory
The Afterlife by Fr. Dolindo Ruotolo
The Imperfection of the Soul
In leaving the body and going to Purgatory, the soul feels a surge toward God, but is like a person who is swayed by a current and cannot reach the shore. The soul rushes toward God, but its imperfections draws it far away. In the illusions of its earthly life, the soul already had put itself into a current that was taking it away from the Divine Love.
When it comes out of the body stained by sin, the sensory illusions become a whirl. Therefore, the soul finds itself swept away from God in the same desire that aims it toward Him with all the strength of a mighty love, due to its being in the state of grace. The soul is outside its body but carries in it the responsibilities of its own miseries, almost as though followed by a dead body: (their deeds follow them). This is a most profound expression; it denotes both the good deeds to which the soul is connected and the bad deeds that follow together with them.
The soul in Purgatory is like someone who is forced to jump into the water of a whirling current, wearing heavy clothes that plunge him down, when he needs to remain floating and working with all his strength to swim toward the peaceful and blossoming shores beyond.1
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