-
October 31, 2021Dear Parishioners,
At the beginning of the month of November we celebrate two major events: All Saints and All Souls. All Souls reminds the faithful to pray for all the deceased. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches us:
"All who die in God's grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven. The Church gives the name Purgatory to this final purification of the elect, which is entirely different from the punishment of the damned" (CCC 1030-1031).
A person who dies “in God’s grace and friendship” is someone who at death is free of mortal sin. We remove mortal sin through the Sacrament of Confession, a perfect act of contrition, or the Sacrament of Anointing given to someone unconscious who would have wanted to go to Confession. But what exactly happens to a soul in purgatory? At the very least we know that it is a state of purification. St. Paul explains in his letter to the Corinthians:
"According to the grace of God given to me, like a wise master builder I laid a foundation, and another is building upon it. But each one must be careful how he builds upon it,for no one can lay a foundation other than the one that is there, namely, Jesus Christ. If anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, or straw, the work of each will come to light, for the Day will disclose it. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire [itself] will test the quality of each one’s work. If the workd stands that someone built upon the foundation, that person will recieve a wage. But if someone's work is burned up, that one will suffer loss; the person will be saved, but only as through fire" (1 Cor. 3:10-15).
St. Paul compares our spiritual lives to a house. Christ is the foundation to our house, which never perishes or is destroyed, but what about the house built on top? If we build our house with quality materials (gold, brick, stone and so on), then a fire will not burn it down. Spiritually speaking these are our good works united to Christ, the virtues, the corporeal and spiritual works, and most of all our constant nourishment at Mass and Confession. Yet, if we build our house with inferior materials like wood, hay, or straw, then the house will burn down when tested by fire. Spiritually speaking these are our attachments, disordered affections, effects of our sins, and vices. We can examine our own spiritual lives and see whether we have been building lives of stone or hay.
Should we die in a state of grace, some of what we built in this life will be burned away in the next life. In heaven there can be absolutely no piece or remnant of sin and hell. All must be purified. Benedict XVI in Spe Salve puts it beautifully:
"The encounter with [Christ] is the decisive act of judgement. Before his gaze all falsehood melts away. This encounter with him, as it burns us, transforms and frees us, allowing us to become truly ourselves. All that we build during our lives can prove to be mere straw, pure bluster, and it collapses. Yet in the pain of this encounter, when the impurity and sickness of our lives become evident to us, there lies salvation. His gaze, the touch of his heart heals us through an undeniably painful transformation “as through fire”. But it is a blessed pain, in which the holy power of his love sears through us like a flame, enabling us to become totally ourselves and thus totally of God."
By our prayers here on earth, we assist the souls undergoing this process in the next life. Whether we offer our prayers today, tomorrow, or thousands of years from now, our prayers will be effective since purgatory exists outside of time. Someday, God will show us precisely how our actions here on earth helped the souls in purgatory.
God bless,
Fr. Barrow
