(Listen to this homily here.)
This is a great time of year for
hunters for birds and, soon enough, deer.
I love spending time outdoors hunting, fishing, camping or
canoeing. I confess I love letting
my hair down and living on the land without showering or shaving for periods of
time. You guys know what I’m
talking about—you’ll enter the world of primal manhood next Saturday when deer
hunting opens!
When
such an excursion ends, there comes a moment where I catch a whiff of
myself. It is usually in the truck
on my way back to civilization. I
suddenly realize, I stink! And
when I look into a mirror a see a disheveled bum looking back at me. Before coming back to home and work I
take a treasured shower to get cleaned up.
Consider
this as a metaphor for purgatory.
Before entering heaven—our home—we must get cleaned up! Any stink of sin and ugliness of evil
must be washed away.
We
have always believed in purgatory.
We see this in Scripture in the second book of Maccabees. The Maccabean brothers offered prayers
and sacrifices for the dead. Why
would they do this if the deceased were in heaven? People in heaven don’t need prayers. We can infer they did so because they
had an understanding of the dead needing their prayers on their journey to the
afterlife.
Our
tradition has consistently taught about purgatory, especially in the Council of
Florence and the Council of Trent.
While
many of our brothers and sisters in other Christian denominations struggle with
this teaching, to me it makes logical sense. If heaven is a place of perfection, only perfected souls can
be there. But what happens if
someone dies with sin, or effects of sin, on their soul? It simply makes sense that some sort of
final cleansing must take place.
We
don’t know much about the details of this final purification because none of us
have been there. The Catechism of the Catholic Church has
only four short paragraphs to describe it. And here is a mind bender for you…when death occurs a soul
leaves time. Time itself is a
creation of God and we live in this linear movement on earth. At the same time, a soul both enters
and leaves purgatory—it begins at death and ends when one enters heaven. How can something have a start and end
outside of time? Chew on that one!
The
answer is, we simply don’t know—purgatory is shrouded in mystery in what it
will look like, where it is (if it is a place) and what takes place.
One
image we may draw from both the Scriptures and the lives of the saints is
fire. One of the options for our
readings today—from Wisdom—states, “The
souls of the just are in the hand of God…As gold in the furnace, he proved them…” Gold being purified in fire from
impurities is a good example to consider in relation to purgatory. But we shouldn’t think of a mini-hell
because this purification will end.
There
is nothing to be scared of when thinking about purgatory. Every soul there now will enter into
heaven! God sent His son to cross
the bridge between death and new life, and he has promised to care for us.
Another
example to consider is giving birth to a child—I hear that isn’t a pleasant
experience! Yet think of the joy you
moms and dads have when a new life enters the world. And I don’t think birth is easy for the baby either. While there may be pain and suffering
involved in birth, at the end of the day there is immense joy. While our final purgation may include
some suffering, the final result—heaven—is on the other side.
With
all this said, it is a good and noble practice to pray for the dead. We do this in a special way as we
commemorate all souls. We do so in
every Mass. We do so when we offer
particular Mass intentions for departed loved ones. And as we do, we may have great hope in the mercy and love
of God.
“Eternal
rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them.”
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