On this foundation the Church in the Councils of Lyons, Florence and Trent, formulated the doctrine that there is a state of purification (purgatorium) after death, and that the souls consigned thereto may be helped by the prayers of the faithful (cf. Trent, Sess. 25 De purg.). The process of Purgatory is a negative one, a purification of the soul, a removal of those blemishes that remain in it because of the imperfection of its earthly life; it is not a positive process, an elevation and perfecting of the soul. And because death is the end of all creative moral initiative and meritorious activity, this removal of defects can be effected only by the way of passive punishment. It is not an active satisfaction for sin (satisfactio), but a satisfactory suffering (satispassio). And so the Church calls the sufferings of Purgatory purifying and cleansing punishments (poenae purgatonae seu catharteriae). The poor soul, having failed to make use of the easier and happier penance of this world, must now endure all the bitterness and all the dire penalties which are necessarily attached by the inviolable law of God’s justice to even the least sin, until she has tasted the wretchedness of sin to its dregs and has lost even the smallest attachment to it, until all that is fragmentary in her has attained completeness, in the perfection of the love of Christ. It is a long and painful process, “so as by fire.” Is it real fire? We cannot tell; its true nature will certainly always remain hidden from us in this world. But we know this, that no penalty presses so hard upon the “poor souls” as the consciousness that they are by their own fault long debarred from the blessed Vision of God. The more they are disengaged gradually in the whole compass of their being from their narrow selves, and the more freely and completely their hearts are opened to God, so much the more is the bitterness of their separation spiritualized and transfigured. It is home-sickness for their Father; and the further their purification proceeds, the more painfully are their souls scourged with its rods of fire.