*PURGATORY/*PURGATION/*PURIFY - Also see PURE, PATH, WAY, JOURNEY, TRANSCENDENCE, SELF-KNOWLEDGE, CONSCIOUSNESS, TRANSFORMED, PURE
The 5 stages of mystic conscioussness are: 1. awakening or conversion, 2. self-knowledge or purgation, 3. illumination (or enlightenment, presence, transcendence, reality) 4. surrender (or dark night), 5. union (Mysticism by Underhill, p203)
Only bitter knowledge of wrongness of relation, seen by the light of ardent love, can spur the will of man to the hard task of readjustment. Remove the rust of illusion, cleansing the mirror in order that it may receive divine light. Souls covered by rust (sin) which is gradually consumed away by the fire of purgatory. (p244) The Way of Purgation is slow and painful completion of conversion. No one can be enlightened unless he be first cleansed or purified and stripped - see poverty, chastity, obedience, detacment, and death.(p246-7)You must tame the Green Lion before you give him wings. (p272) Acknowleging oneself utterly unworthy to receive such Love. (p277)(Mysticism)
The dark night is no a suffering that has to be endured, but a process of purification. This cleansing is an emancipation from obstacles that separate a person from the experience of God. For example, 2 people in wilderness with only water - one starves to death while the other fasts.(Meaning, p113)
To go beyond or more deeply into these times of felt purgation, we have to be content to feel lost, seemingly without any definite direction. We have to make frequent acts of faith. (Dark Night, p29)
Grace places us in the passive purgation of dark night so that we may see the light. We cannot actively purify our hearts, purgation is a gift. (Dark Night, p52-3)
We can all earn remission of our time in Purgatory by prayer and good works and more importantly for those already in Purgatory. When in pain, 'Offer it up to the souls in Purgatory' means that our willing acceptance of the pains which God, in his infinite wisdom, inflicts on us in this world - our submission to them without complaint or anger - carries merit in the next. (Quest, p155)