First, let’s be clear on what the Church teaches — there is a heaven, hell and purgatory. Depending on the state of your soul at death, you will spend eternity in one of former two and possibly some amount of time in the latter. The Church’s teaching on this is explicit and is beautifully addressed in “Lumen Gentium,” No. 48:

“Since we know neither the day nor the hour, we should follow the advice of the Lord and watch constantly so that, when the single course of our earthly life is completed (Hebrews 9:27), we may merit to enter with him into the marriage feast and be numbered among the blessed, and not, like the wicked and slothful servants, be ordered to depart into the eternal fire, into the outer darkness where ‘men will weep and gnash their teeth’ (Matthew 22:13 and 25:30).’”

The “Gentleman Saint” and doctor of the Church, St. Francis de Sales, reminds us that during the time we are allotted on earth, we must live in a way that will prepare us for death, “Happy are they who, being always on their guard against death, find themselves always ready to die.”

To enter heaven, every trace of sin must be eliminated and purged from the soul. As we know from what Our Lord suffered in His passion and crucifixion, the purging of sin is no small task.

Despite lack of popular usage, the “Church triumphant, militant, and suffering” is an accurate description of the different states of the Mystical Body of Christ of which we are all a part. Just as we pray for our earthly family, so, too, must we pray for our spiritual family as it exists in its various stages.

The Church triumphant can be of great assistance to us in our prayers. They are already in heaven and can intercede for us, the Church militant.

We are the Church militant, because, as the etymology of the phrase tells us, we are the Church on earth, engaged in warfare with the devil, the flesh, and worldly powers of temptation and unrighteousness.

The Church suffering are those souls who are being purged of any attachment to sin that existed at their separation from their corporal body. Purgatory isn’t eternal, it’s the threshold to heaven. St. Augustine of Hippo, father and doctor of the Church, in “The City of God” instructs us that “temporal punishments are suffered by some in this life only, by some after death, by some both here and hereafter, but all of them before that last and strictest judgment. But not all who suffer temporal punishments after death will come to eternal punishments, which are to follow after that judgment.”

It is our duty, privilege, and honor as Catholics to pray for those who are being purged of their last attachment to sin. We pray for their deliverance so that, as the Church triumphant, they may pray for us.

Westhoff is director of communications for the Archdiocese of St. Louis.