Is Purgatory Inevitable?

While still only a Novice, St. Therese of Lisieux commented on this question with one of the Sisters, Sr. Maria Philomena, who believed in the near impossibility of going straight to heaven without passing through purgatory:

“You do not have enough trust. You have too much fear before the good God. I can assure you that He is grieved over this. You should not fear Purgatory because of the suffering there, but should instead ask that you not deserve to go there in order to please God, Who so reluctantly imposes this punishment. As soon as you try to please Him in everything and have an unshakable trust,He purifies you every moment in His love and He lets no sin remain. And then you can be sure that you will not have to go to Purgatory.”

When she found out that her Novices occasionally said that they would probably have to expect to be in Purgatory, she corrected them saying: “Oh! How you grieve me! You do a great injury to God in believing you're going to Purgatory. When we love, we can't go there.”
This is not a new doctrine. It is true that God will judge us at one point, but He is always and first our Father, Who... suffers when He has to punish His child and sees it suffering. And this really means that God does not want souls to go to Purgatory! He permits that His children will have to suffer because they count too much on themselves and not enough on Him or basically because they have “grown up” to not always need Him.
Few will, however, avoid Purgatory. St. John of the Cross says, “Only a small number of souls achieve perfect love” (perfect love is necessary to go straight to heaven). St. Teresa of Avila also had the experience that only few will be able to avoid Purgatory. St. John Vianney said, “It is definite that only a few chosen ones do not go to Purgatory and the suffering there that one must endure, exceeds our imagination.”
St. Therese says that we must have trust. Few really trust in God completely. On earth, they trust in their health, strength, knowledge, money, even “their” virtues and merits etc. God must purify the soul of these empty trusts. Few souls accept well that purification. They don’t like to be shown that they are nothing and they depend completely on Him, to have their health and independence taken away. Each of these purifications is a mercy of God preparing the soul for heaven. It is because many reject purifications and trust in self that they go to purgatory.
St. Therese had a confrontation regarding this topic with Sr. Marie Febronia,who, not only was sixty-seven years old but also was Sub-Prioress. She had heard that St. Therese encouraged the novices to believe that they could go straight to heaven. She did not like this, as she considered this kind of confidence, presumptuous. Therefore, she reproached Sr. Therese. The saint tried lovingly and calmly to explain to Sr. Febronia her point of view, but with no success, as Sr. Febronia clung to her belief. For St. Therese, God was more Father than Judge, and she took the liberty of finally responding, “My sister, if you look for the justice of God, you will get it. The soul will receive from God exactly what she desires.”
In less than a year, in January 1892, Sr. M. Febronia together with other Sisters,fell prey to the flu and died. Three months later, Sr. Therese had a dream which she related to her Mother Prioress and which was then documented: “O my Mother, my Sr. M Febronia came to me last night and asked that we should pray for her: She is in Purgatory, surely because she had trusted too little in the mercy of the good Lord. Through her imploring behaviour and her profound looks, it seemed as if she wanted to say: You were right. I am now delivered up to the full justice of God, but it is my fault. If I had listened to you, I would not be here now.”

Points to meditate on:

1. We don’t have to go to purgatory. If we accept our nothingness and accept joyfully God’s purifications every day, we can avoid purgatory. If we come to God empty-handed and small, not full self-importance and pride, He will then receive us as children into heaven right away.
2. To think of purgatory is “inevitable” and live accordingly is a grave error. Nobody should expose themselves to the danger of Purgatory by living mediocre life. If they only thought of the intense sufferings in Purgatory. In this regard, the mystics unanimously say that the least suffering in Purgatory is much greater than the greatest suffering here on earth! God is just in His punishments. Here, Our Lord's word rightly applies: “I say to thee, thou shalt not go out thence, until thou pay the very last mite.” (Lk 12:59). The many,who carelessly say, “I will probably spend some time there,” are gravely wrong. Nobody just spends some time there, one has to suffer there like one has never St. Raphael’s Bulletin, November 2012 3suffered nor could have suffered while on earth. One often even suffers a longtime there.
3. Purgatory is a waste of time. At the moment of our death we already have our place in Heaven. Afterwards, there is no growing in grace anymore. Whoever does not go through Purgatory does not miss anything.
4. Love banishes fear. It is not our sins that can prevent God from giving us this grace but rather our lack of trust. There is no trust without perfect love.And vice versa, there is no love without trust. And this is exactly what the Apostle John writes in his first letter, “perfect charity casteth out fear.” (1 Jn.4:18). St. Therese refers in her writings to the Lord's mercy towards the good thief, and wishes that the story from the "desert fathers," about how a great sinner called Paesie died out of love and is being taken straight to heaven,should be added to her autobiography, “Souls will understand immediately, fort is a striking example of what I'm trying to say.”
5. The last will be the first. St. Therese of Lisieux tells us that she heard that sometimes even saints with many merits come before the Judgement of God,but have to go to Purgatory because their justice before God is often unclean.She recommends to us to give immediately away (e.g. to Our Lady) all the merits of our good deeds. It is better to appear before God empty-handed.
6. The way of the small and humble. Through trust, St. Therese shows the shorter way to Heaven to the small and humble. And so many can and will go that way. She writes about this to her sister Marie: “... what pleases Him (God)is that He sees me loving my littleness and my poverty, the blind hope that I have in His mercy... That is my only treasure, dear Godmother, why should this treasure not be yours?...”