May 25, 2023 • 15 mins
In this episode of Know Your Faith, Robert Madrigal shares the fourth part of his Purgatory series entitled "The Cotton Farmer" (May 23, 2023).
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
You're listening to WCAT radio, yourhome for authentic Catholic programming. Following Good
Day, everyone out there listening toWCAT radio dot com. My name is
Robert Madrigale, the host of thisshow Know Your Faith, a source,
a forum for those who know thefaith, a source for those who like
(00:23):
to get to know the faith,aka Unapologetically Apologetics. On this show,
we talk about Catholic apologetics, andwe are unapologetic about our love for God,
our love for Christ, and ourlove for the Catholic Church. Today,
our focus will be on the veryCatholic doctrine of purgatory. This is
(00:46):
part four of a series on fiveon purgatory, Parts one, two,
and three. We're a good Biblebased apologias for the existence of purgatory.
Today's show is not a Bible basedapologia for Protestants or for debates with Protestants.
It's more like a Catechism class forCatholics. I would like to go
(01:11):
over this analogy that I made up, which I am hoping puts purgatory into
a better perspective for US Catholics.With my analogy, I hope it'll be
easier to understand. And today Idedicate this presentation to all the Catholics out
there who would like to learn moreabout the faith because of their faith in
(01:34):
Church and in Christ. Of course, Christ is the head of the body
the Church. But before we getinto tonight's show, I would like to
start things off right, and thatwould be with the prayer. So we'll
begin our prayer in the name ofthe Father and of the Son and of
the Holy Spirit. Heavenly Father,we come to you in great thanksgiving today
(01:57):
for this opportunity to come together asbrothers and sisters in Christ, so that
we may learn more about our faith. For the sake of defending the faith,
we asked that you grant us thestrength to explain and defend our faith
with patience and charity, and tosee challenges to our faith as a chance
to evangelize and spread the love andpeace of Christ to all whom we meet,
(02:23):
and to do this through the exampleof self sacrifice that Christ provides for
us through his death on the Cross. We asked us, in the name
of Christ, our Lord, amendwill end our prayer in the name of
the Father and of the Son andof the Holy Spirit. So we had
a discussion, or we had discussedin parts one through three of this series
(02:47):
the teaching of purgatory, and wetalked about how it goes all the way
back before the canonization of the Biblein the year four a weight and back
before for scripture that makes up theNew Testament was written, and even further
back before that, back to theOld Testament, before the time that Jesus
(03:12):
walked the earth. It is thename purgatory that's relatively new. We received
purgatory or the belief in purgatory,directly from God through revelation and the prophets,
the profits of the Old Testament,and we also received revelation of purgatory
(03:37):
from Apostolic tradition, which was taughtto the apostles by Christ. We did
not get our belief in purgatory fromthe sixteenth century Bible alone theory, which
is the theory that the Protestants putout that's their doctrine. Actually, we
(03:58):
didn't have to look to the Bibleto see what we believe so that we
could find purgatory. But we diduse the Bible to show that it was
written down by the prophets and theapostles. So that is why most Protestants
(04:21):
and Bible Christians reject purgatory because theword purgatory does not appear anywhere in the
Bible. But then again, neitherit does the word Trinity, or more
importantly, the words Bible alone.And this is because the word purgatory is
a term that the Catholic Church coinedback in the fifteenth century during the Council
(04:43):
of Florence. The Church did thisbecause of the need to identify the teaching
due to the questions that we're comingup at the time for today's So I
would like to use an analogy thatwill show that purgatory is reasonable and if
you understand, if you understand theology, it will give you an idea of
(05:06):
the theological implications of the existence ofpurgatory. This analogy is quite worthy,
so please bear with me. Sosuppose there were a cotton farmer that came
up with the brand new method ofcleansing cotton to the point that it's a
(05:28):
one hundred percent clean, no blemishesand no stains whatsoever, one hundred percent
pure clean cotton. And that iswhat he promised his customers all the time,
one percent clean. One day,his shipping manager comes up to him
(05:50):
and tells him, hey, boss, we have an order of thirty five
thousand, I'm sorry, excuse me, thirty five tons of cotton, but
we only have thirty two tons onhand, and we're going to be thirty
I'm sorry, three tons short.Excuse me. So after the farmer and
(06:11):
his shipping manager discuss it for abit, they accept the shortage and they
get ready to ship the load.What else can they do? But just
before the load is ready to ship, the shipping manager runs up once again
and tells the farmer, Boss,we have the three tons of cotton necessary
to complete the load. The onlyproblem is we don't have time to complete
(06:33):
the clean cleaning process before shipping.So the farmer asks him how clean can
you get it? The shipper replies, ninety eight percent clean, Boss.
So the farmer thinks about it forjust for a second. He says,
okay, take out half of whatwe have one hundred percent clean so far,
and then you take your stuff that'sninety eight percent clean and mix it
(06:56):
into the one percent clean, andthe customer will never know the question is,
what did the farmer just do?Did he just purify the ninety eight
percent clean by adding it to theone hundred percent clean or did he contaminate
the one hundred percent pure with thetwo percent blemish. What he did is
(07:20):
he just contaminated the one percent purecotton with the two percent blemish. It
might have diminished the two percent todown to maybe zero point five percent or
something like that, but he didcontaminate the one hundred percent pure cotton.
(07:40):
And that is exactly what the stainof sin would do if it entered Heaven.
Sin cannot enter Heaven, not eventhe stain of sin, because of
its imperfection. And that is becauseHeaven is perfect. So unless you think
(08:01):
that all Christians die on pure andclean from the stain of sin, then
we must be purified from the stainof sin before we are allowed to enter
into Heaven. And if not,if we were not purified, we would
enter Heaven imperfect and therefore contaminate Heaven'spurity. So I want everyone out there
(08:30):
listening to use their imaginations. Imaginea Christian who dies just a tad impure
after spending a lifetime of living amoral life, or even if that person
had an immoral thought just seconds beforetheir death. This person stayed on the
(08:50):
straight narrow paths, living as bestto Christian life as they can, and
because of a two percent GLEM oreven zero point zero zero zero nine nine
blemish, they do not get toenter Heaven and they get to spend the
(09:11):
rest of eternity suffering. Now,if I were arrogant, I might say,
well, I've led a righteous life. I wouldn't need any purification before
I'm allowed to enter Heaven. Meand my congregation would make it in no
problem. Wouldn't I be leaving outthe countless millions of people who are good
(09:35):
Christian folks yet are imperfect and mademistakes as humans during their lifetime. And
that is, after all, whyJesus died on the cross for our sins,
because we're only human and we makemistakes, the mistakes that we make
(09:56):
as human, even the one thatwe make seconds before our deaths. And
you never know where when you're goingto die. So both Catholics and Protestants
alike believe that in heaven, wellas far as I know anyway, we
(10:16):
all believe that in heaven we willbe living in the presence of God.
That's what we should believe, andthat heaven is the state of perfection.
So imagine if we're standing there inthe presence of God without being purified from
the stain of sin. First,wouldn't that mean that sin, or at
(10:39):
least the stain from sin, canexist in heaven. At very least,
we would be saying that we alldie and everyone that we see in heaven
died in the state of perfection,grace, and holiness. This belief would
at very least make it extremely difficultto enter heaven, and I think a
(11:03):
very small minority of Christians would makeit in. I hope with my analogy
it puts it into perspective. Nomatter what, no matter what I say
and what kind of argument I comeup with, I know there will be
objections to them. So if you'restill unconvinced, or maybe you just don't
(11:26):
like my analogy, I could backit up with scripture in Revelation chapter twenty
one, verse twenty seven. Butnothing unclean shall enter it. And the
context of the chapter is a newHeaven, a new Earth and subtitled a
new Jerusalem. And then there's thisverse from the Gospel of Matthew chapter five,
(11:48):
verse forty eight. You therefore mustbe perfect as your heavenly Father is
perfect. Now this verse comes tous from the sermon on the mount words
direct be from Jesus, and weall know that we as humans are far
from being perfect. Anyone who wouldthink about that for just a few minutes
(12:11):
would have to admit that they themselvesaren't perfect. And I have never met
a Bible believing Christian who claims tobe perfect. Without purgatory, we are
in danger of suffering and hell forthe rest of eternity because of our imperfections.
And I, for one believe thatGod is much more forgiving than that.
(12:37):
Earthly perfection does even come close tothe perfection of Heaven. We're not
even in the same galaxy, muchless the same ballpark, and that goes
to show us that not only shouldwe believe in purgatory, but also purgatory
is necessary for our salvation, thenecessary final purification to enter Heaven. That
(13:01):
is all we need. Excuse me, that is all the time that we
have for tonight. So I haveto say goodbye to everyone out there listening
to WCAT radio dot com. Pleasejoin us once again for part five of
our series on Purgatory. Our nextshow is one of my favorites, and
we will examine the Catholic city ofthe doctrine of purgatory. I'm looking forward
(13:26):
to spending this time with everyone outthere who are interested in listening to what
I have to say and to hearfrom you as well. Please email me
at Madrigal dot Robert at ymail dotcom, and please feel free to send
me any questions and even more importantlycomments. If I say something wrong,
(13:48):
I'll be the first to admit it. I would like to call out to
everyone listening to pray for fallen Catholicsto return to the church, and please
play a rosary for the church suffering, and that is the souls in purgatory.
So with that, let's end theshow off right, and that would
be with the prayer, and we'llbegin our prayer in the name of the
Father and of the Son and anHoly Spirit, Heavenly Father, we come
(14:09):
to you in great thanksgiving today forthis opportunity to come together as brothers and
sisters in Christ, so that wemay learn more about our faith. For
the sake of defending the faith,we ask that you vantist the strength to
explain and defend our faith with patienceand charity, and to see challenges to
(14:30):
our faith as a chance to evangelizeand to spread the love and peace of
Christ to all whom we meet,and to do this through the example of
self sacrifice that Christ provides for usthrough his death on the Cross. We
ask this in the name of Christ, our Lord. Amen, and we'll
end our prayer and the name ofthe Father and of the Son and of
(14:52):
the Holy Spirit. So thank youfor joining us, and may God be
with you and everything you do.Goodbye, Up, Hello, God's beloved.
I'm Annabel Moseley, author, professorof theology and host of Then Sings
My Soul and Destination Sainthood on WCATRadio. I invite you to listen in
(15:15):
and find inspiration along this sacred journey. We're traveling together to make our lives
a masterpiece. End with God's grace, become saints. Join me Annabel Mosley
for then Sings My Soul and DestinationSainthood on WCAT Radio. God bless you.
Remember you are never alone. Godis always we heard. Thank you
(15:45):
for listening to a production of WCATRadio. Please join us an omission of
evangelization, and don't forget Love liftsup when knowledge takes flight.
You're listening to WCAT radio, yourhome for authentic Catholic programming. Following Good
Day, everyone out there listening toWCAT radio dot com. My name is
Robert Madrigale, the host of thisshow Know Your Faith, a source,
a forum for those who know thefaith, a source for those who like
(00:23):
to get to know the faith,aka Unapologetically Apologetics. On this show,
we talk about Catholic apologetics, andwe are unapologetic about our love for God,
our love for Christ, and ourlove for the Catholic Church. Today,
our focus will be on the veryCatholic doctrine of purgatory. This is
(00:46):
part four of a series on fiveon purgatory, Parts one, two,
and three. We're a good Biblebased apologias for the existence of purgatory.
Today's show is not a Bible basedapologia for Protestants or for debates with Protestants.
It's more like a Catechism class forCatholics. I would like to go
(01:11):
over this analogy that I made up, which I am hoping puts purgatory into
a better perspective for US Catholics.With my analogy, I hope it'll be
easier to understand. And today Idedicate this presentation to all the Catholics out
there who would like to learn moreabout the faith because of their faith in
(01:34):
Church and in Christ. Of course, Christ is the head of the body
the Church. But before we getinto tonight's show, I would like to
start things off right, and thatwould be with the prayer. So we'll
begin our prayer in the name ofthe Father and of the Son and of
the Holy Spirit. Heavenly Father,we come to you in great thanksgiving today
(01:57):
for this opportunity to come together asbrothers and sisters in Christ, so that
we may learn more about our faith. For the sake of defending the faith,
we asked that you grant us thestrength to explain and defend our faith
with patience and charity, and tosee challenges to our faith as a chance
to evangelize and spread the love andpeace of Christ to all whom we meet,
(02:23):
and to do this through the exampleof self sacrifice that Christ provides for
us through his death on the Cross. We asked us, in the name
of Christ, our Lord, amendwill end our prayer in the name of
the Father and of the Son andof the Holy Spirit. So we had
a discussion, or we had discussedin parts one through three of this series
(02:47):
the teaching of purgatory, and wetalked about how it goes all the way
back before the canonization of the Biblein the year four a weight and back
before for scripture that makes up theNew Testament was written, and even further
back before that, back to theOld Testament, before the time that Jesus
(03:12):
walked the earth. It is thename purgatory that's relatively new. We received
purgatory or the belief in purgatory,directly from God through revelation and the prophets,
the profits of the Old Testament,and we also received revelation of purgatory
(03:37):
from Apostolic tradition, which was taughtto the apostles by Christ. We did
not get our belief in purgatory fromthe sixteenth century Bible alone theory, which
is the theory that the Protestants putout that's their doctrine. Actually, we
(03:58):
didn't have to look to the Bibleto see what we believe so that we
could find purgatory. But we diduse the Bible to show that it was
written down by the prophets and theapostles. So that is why most Protestants
(04:21):
and Bible Christians reject purgatory because theword purgatory does not appear anywhere in the
Bible. But then again, neitherit does the word Trinity, or more
importantly, the words Bible alone.And this is because the word purgatory is
a term that the Catholic Church coinedback in the fifteenth century during the Council
(04:43):
of Florence. The Church did thisbecause of the need to identify the teaching
due to the questions that we're comingup at the time for today's So I
would like to use an analogy thatwill show that purgatory is reasonable and if
you understand, if you understand theology, it will give you an idea of
(05:06):
the theological implications of the existence ofpurgatory. This analogy is quite worthy,
so please bear with me. Sosuppose there were a cotton farmer that came
up with the brand new method ofcleansing cotton to the point that it's a
(05:28):
one hundred percent clean, no blemishesand no stains whatsoever, one hundred percent
pure clean cotton. And that iswhat he promised his customers all the time,
one percent clean. One day,his shipping manager comes up to him
(05:50):
and tells him, hey, boss, we have an order of thirty five
thousand, I'm sorry, excuse me, thirty five tons of cotton, but
we only have thirty two tons onhand, and we're going to be thirty
I'm sorry, three tons short.Excuse me. So after the farmer and
(06:11):
his shipping manager discuss it for abit, they accept the shortage and they
get ready to ship the load.What else can they do? But just
before the load is ready to ship, the shipping manager runs up once again
and tells the farmer, Boss,we have the three tons of cotton necessary
to complete the load. The onlyproblem is we don't have time to complete
(06:33):
the clean cleaning process before shipping.So the farmer asks him how clean can
you get it? The shipper replies, ninety eight percent clean, Boss.
So the farmer thinks about it forjust for a second. He says,
okay, take out half of whatwe have one hundred percent clean so far,
and then you take your stuff that'sninety eight percent clean and mix it
(06:56):
into the one percent clean, andthe customer will never know the question is,
what did the farmer just do?Did he just purify the ninety eight
percent clean by adding it to theone hundred percent clean or did he contaminate
the one hundred percent pure with thetwo percent blemish. What he did is
(07:20):
he just contaminated the one percent purecotton with the two percent blemish. It
might have diminished the two percent todown to maybe zero point five percent or
something like that, but he didcontaminate the one hundred percent pure cotton.
(07:40):
And that is exactly what the stainof sin would do if it entered Heaven.
Sin cannot enter Heaven, not eventhe stain of sin, because of
its imperfection. And that is becauseHeaven is perfect. So unless you think
(08:01):
that all Christians die on pure andclean from the stain of sin, then
we must be purified from the stainof sin before we are allowed to enter
into Heaven. And if not,if we were not purified, we would
enter Heaven imperfect and therefore contaminate Heaven'spurity. So I want everyone out there
(08:30):
listening to use their imaginations. Imaginea Christian who dies just a tad impure
after spending a lifetime of living amoral life, or even if that person
had an immoral thought just seconds beforetheir death. This person stayed on the
(08:50):
straight narrow paths, living as bestto Christian life as they can, and
because of a two percent GLEM oreven zero point zero zero zero nine nine
blemish, they do not get toenter Heaven and they get to spend the
(09:11):
rest of eternity suffering. Now,if I were arrogant, I might say,
well, I've led a righteous life. I wouldn't need any purification before
I'm allowed to enter Heaven. Meand my congregation would make it in no
problem. Wouldn't I be leaving outthe countless millions of people who are good
(09:35):
Christian folks yet are imperfect and mademistakes as humans during their lifetime. And
that is, after all, whyJesus died on the cross for our sins,
because we're only human and we makemistakes, the mistakes that we make
(09:56):
as human, even the one thatwe make seconds before our deaths. And
you never know where when you're goingto die. So both Catholics and Protestants
alike believe that in heaven, wellas far as I know anyway, we
(10:16):
all believe that in heaven we willbe living in the presence of God.
That's what we should believe, andthat heaven is the state of perfection.
So imagine if we're standing there inthe presence of God without being purified from
the stain of sin. First,wouldn't that mean that sin, or at
(10:39):
least the stain from sin, canexist in heaven. At very least,
we would be saying that we alldie and everyone that we see in heaven
died in the state of perfection,grace, and holiness. This belief would
at very least make it extremely difficultto enter heaven, and I think a
(11:03):
very small minority of Christians would makeit in. I hope with my analogy
it puts it into perspective. Nomatter what, no matter what I say
and what kind of argument I comeup with, I know there will be
objections to them. So if you'restill unconvinced, or maybe you just don't
(11:26):
like my analogy, I could backit up with scripture in Revelation chapter twenty
one, verse twenty seven. Butnothing unclean shall enter it. And the
context of the chapter is a newHeaven, a new Earth and subtitled a
new Jerusalem. And then there's thisverse from the Gospel of Matthew chapter five,
(11:48):
verse forty eight. You therefore mustbe perfect as your heavenly Father is
perfect. Now this verse comes tous from the sermon on the mount words
direct be from Jesus, and weall know that we as humans are far
from being perfect. Anyone who wouldthink about that for just a few minutes
(12:11):
would have to admit that they themselvesaren't perfect. And I have never met
a Bible believing Christian who claims tobe perfect. Without purgatory, we are
in danger of suffering and hell forthe rest of eternity because of our imperfections.
And I, for one believe thatGod is much more forgiving than that.
(12:37):
Earthly perfection does even come close tothe perfection of Heaven. We're not
even in the same galaxy, muchless the same ballpark, and that goes
to show us that not only shouldwe believe in purgatory, but also purgatory
is necessary for our salvation, thenecessary final purification to enter Heaven. That
(13:01):
is all we need. Excuse me, that is all the time that we
have for tonight. So I haveto say goodbye to everyone out there listening
to WCAT radio dot com. Pleasejoin us once again for part five of
our series on Purgatory. Our nextshow is one of my favorites, and
we will examine the Catholic city ofthe doctrine of purgatory. I'm looking forward
(13:26):
to spending this time with everyone outthere who are interested in listening to what
I have to say and to hearfrom you as well. Please email me
at Madrigal dot Robert at ymail dotcom, and please feel free to send
me any questions and even more importantlycomments. If I say something wrong,
(13:48):
I'll be the first to admit it. I would like to call out to
everyone listening to pray for fallen Catholicsto return to the church, and please
play a rosary for the church suffering, and that is the souls in purgatory.
So with that, let's end theshow off right, and that would
be with the prayer, and we'llbegin our prayer in the name of the
Father and of the Son and anHoly Spirit, Heavenly Father, we come
(14:09):
to you in great thanksgiving today forthis opportunity to come together as brothers and
sisters in Christ, so that wemay learn more about our faith. For
the sake of defending the faith,we ask that you vantist the strength to
explain and defend our faith with patienceand charity, and to see challenges to
(14:30):
our faith as a chance to evangelizeand to spread the love and peace of
Christ to all whom we meet,and to do this through the example of
self sacrifice that Christ provides for usthrough his death on the Cross. We
ask this in the name of Christ, our Lord. Amen, and we'll
end our prayer and the name ofthe Father and of the Son and of
(14:52):
the Holy Spirit. So thank youfor joining us, and may God be
with you and everything you do.Goodbye, Up, Hello, God's beloved.
I'm Annabel Moseley, author, professorof theology and host of Then Sings
My Soul and Destination Sainthood on WCATRadio. I invite you to listen in
(15:15):
and find inspiration along this sacred journey. We're traveling together to make our lives
a masterpiece. End with God's grace, become saints. Join me Annabel Mosley
for then Sings My Soul and DestinationSainthood on WCAT Radio. God bless you.
Remember you are never alone. Godis always we heard. Thank you
(15:45):
for listening to a production of WCATRadio. Please join us an omission of
evangelization, and don't forget Love liftsup when knowledge takes flight.
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