Purgatory - A Place of Refreshment

4 April 2026  1 Peter 3:19-4:8

Holy Saturday

“…He went and preached to the spirits in prison….” (1 Peter 3:19)    

The disciples, and all the other followers of Jesus, weren’t doing anything on Holy Saturday – it was the Sabbath. But what was Jesus doing on Holy Saturday?

Augustine, and others of the Fathers, taught – and the Church teaches still – that there are those who have repented and sought God with the strength they had, but have not been completely purified of unholy and unhealthy attachments in their earthly lives. Purgatory is where God mercifully purifies such people of all unrighteous attachments so that we can be “all in” in our devotion to Him.

Ancient traditions say that Jesus went to the realm of the dead, and there proclaimed his victory over sin and death to all those who, through no fault of their own, had died before Jesus’ time and never heard the proclamation of the Gospel. Ancient liturgies refer to a “place of refreshment” (locus refrigerii) where people like Noah, Abraham, and others of the faithful departed, awaited Christ’s preaching of the Kingdom on Holy Saturday.

Over time, this led to theologians like Augustine teaching that prayers and sacrifices of the living can provide “relief” (refrigerium) to souls in Purgatory. Augustine, and others of the Fathers, taught – and the Church teaches still – that there are those who have repented and sought God with the strength they had, but have not been completely purified of unholy and unhealthy attachments in their earthly lives. Purgatory is where God mercifully purifies such people of all unrighteous attachments so that we can be “all in” in our devotion to Him. “Refrigerium” is the space God provides for that purification, and the help the living can provide through our prayers and sacrifices. It is the space where Jesus spoke on Holy Saturday.

“Refrigerium” became the basis for a classic work by C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce, in which the gates of Hell are locked from the inside. Some of the lost souls, however, take a bus trip to heaven, and are offered a chance to stay. Most, however, decline the offer, preferring their self-pity and pride to “relief.” Lewis said that his story was a response to William Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. Blake wrote that, given enough time and skill, evil could “develop” into good, which Lewis considered a disastrous error: “If we insist on keeping Hell (or even earth) we shall not see Heaven: if we accept Heaven, we shall not be able to retain even the smallest and most intimate souvenirs of Hell” (The Great Divorce, viii-ix).  Our right hands and right eyes may be among the things we have to leave behind. But once we are purified in the locus refrigerii even the loss of our right hands or right eyes will be small potatoes indeed.

Lewis recognized, of course, that the talk of a “place of refreshment” as a kind of anteroom to heaven can create a certain confusion about this world:

“But what, you ask, of earth? Earth, I think, will not be found by anyone to be, in the end, a very distinct place. I think earth, if chosen instead of Heaven, will turn out to have been, all along, only a region in Hell: and earth, if put second to heaven, to have been, from the beginning, a part of Heaven itself.” (The Great Divorce, ix)

Holy Saturday is a small, and generally overlooked, feature of Holy Week, but a vivid and vigorous part of the salvation Holy Week proclaims. There is not one of us who does not struggle with some unrighteous attachment, some small, stubborn, clinging bit of death that nobody notices, but we know is there. It’s just a little bit, but enough to keep us out of heaven. Jesus knows it is there, too, and He is speaking to it today, providing a “place of refreshment” today. He’ll get rid of of that unholy attachment today, too.

As long as the door isn’t locked from the inside.