The Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed(All Souls)
“For greater things you were born.” (Ven. Mother Luisita)
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 2nd Jn. 6: 37-40 “For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him may have eternal life, and I shall raise him on the last day.”
Today the Church celebrates All Souls Day. According to Catholic belief, the soul of a person who dies free of mortal sin, but still in a state of lesser (venial) sin, goes to the purifying fire of Purgatory to be cleansed and perfected before they enter into heaven.
- As Catholics, we should be familiar with the scriptural basis for this belief.
2 Mac. 12: 38-45 Judas and his soldiers have just won a major battle.
Then Judas assembled his army and went to the city of Adul′lam. As the seventh day was coming on, they purified themselves according to the custom, and they kept the Sabbath there.
On the next day… Judas and his men went to take up the bodies of the fallen and to bring them back to lie with their kinsmen in the sepulchers of their fathers. Then under the tunic of every one of the dead they found sacred tokens of the idols of Jam′nia, which the law forbids the Jews to wear. And it became clear to all that this was why these men had fallen.
So they all blessed the ways of the Lord, the righteous Judge, who reveals the things that are hidden; and they turned to prayer, beseeching that the sin which had been committed might be wholly blotted out. And the noble Judas exhorted the people to keep themselves free from sin, for they had seen with their own eyes what had happened because of the sin of those who had fallen.
He also took up a collection, man by man, to the amount of two thousand drachmas of silver, and sent it to Jerusalem to provide for a sin offering. In doing this he acted very well and honorably, taking account of the resurrection. For if he were not expecting that those who had fallen would rise again, it would have been superfluous and foolish to pray for the dead. But if he was looking to the splendid reward that is laid up for those who fall asleep in godliness, it was a holy and pious thought. Therefore he made atonement for the dead that they might be delivered from their sin. End of Scripture Passage
PURGATORY: GOD’S CLEANSING FIRE OF LOVE by Fr. Ed Broom, OMV
1. PURGATORY. Also a doctrinal truth taught by the Catholic Church. It is a clear manifestation of the goodness and mercy of our Loving and Good God!
2. NOTHING IMPURE. The Bible teaches us with utmost clarity that nothing impure can enter the presence of God.
3. WHO GOES TO PURGATORY? The Church teaches that those who die in the state of sanctifying grace, being free of the stark reality of Mortal Sin, but who have less serious stains on their soul must go to a place of Purification that we call PURGATORY!
4. WHAT MUST BE PURIFIED? Venial sins and repented mortal sins that have not been fully expiated or purified must undergo a process of purification.
5. LENGTH? Different from Heaven and Hell, Purgatory is temporal—that is to say, eventually it comes to an end according to the state of each individual soul. At the end of time, Purgatory will come to an end and cease to exist!
6. WHAT IS IT LIKE? According to Catholic Tradition, Purgatory is a cleansing fire. As gold is purified in fire, so the soul is purified of all elements of sin and selfishness by the cleansing fire of the love of God.
7. AN ANALOGY. The Book of Revelation compares Heaven to that of a Wedding Banquet. Nobody in their right mind would enter a Wedding Banquet with dirty and smelly clothes. No! They would have to be washed and cleaned first. So it is with Heaven. Purgatory washes the dirty stains of sin that still remain on our soul so that we can enter the eternal Heavenly Banquet to be with God and His angels and saints.
8. ANOTHER? Yes, Saint John of the Cross presents a cold, dirty, and rusty piece of iron that is cast into a blazing fire. As the iron heats up and gets hot, the coldness, dirt, and rust fall from the iron, until finally, the iron is red hot and becomes like the fire. So it is in Purgatory, the fire of God’s love must burn away the coldness and rust of our selfishness!
9. WHAT CAN WE DO TO HELP THE SOULS IN PURGATORY? The three classical works of Lent, which can be done any time of year: prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. The more we do these practices, the better for the souls in Purgatory, for the sooner they will be released to Heaven! Of course, the most powerful prayer is the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and the reception of Holy Communion for the souls in Purgatory. By the way, the souls in Purgatory cannot pray for themselves, but they can pray for us! Let us ask them to pray for our eternal salvation!
10. PLENARY INDULGENCE AND PURGATORY. This can be offered for the souls in Purgatory or for yourself, but you cannot offer it for anyone else who is living. Conditions? 1) Confession 2) Mass and Holy Communion, 3) Indulgenced prayer such as a Rosary prayed in the family or in front of the Blessed Sacrament, 4) Pray for the intentions of the Holy Father, and 5) strive to give up sin, fully and totally. You could earn this Plenary Indulgence every day and release a soul from Purgatory every day! All the conditions have to be met for each day that you wish to obtain a Plenary Indulgence, with the exception of Confession which can be done within 20 days. Assuredly these souls would show their gratitude by praying for all your intentions and your eternal salvation! End of Reflection
IN DEFENSE OF PURGATORY by Benedict XVI…
I would go so far as to say that if there was no purgatory, then we would have to invent it, for who would dare say of himself that he was able to stand directly before God. And yet we don’t want to be, to use an image from Scripture, “a pot that is turned out wrong,” that has to be thrown away; we want to be able to be put right.
Purgatory basically means that God can put the pieces back together again. That He can cleanse us in such a way that we are able to be with Him and can stand there in the fullness of life. Purgatory strips off from one person what is unbearable, and from another the inability to bear certain things, so that in each of them a pure heart is revealed, and we can see that we all belong together in one enormous symphony of being. End of Reflection
- Purgatory was also defended by C.S. Lewis, an Anglican Christian apologist who held a very Catholic view of Purgatory, even quoting from the poem Dream of Gerontius written by Saint Cardinal Henry Newman, a former Anglican priest who converted to Catholicism.
THE NECESSITY OF PURGATORY by C.S. Lewis (+1963) from “Letters to Malcolm”…
Of course I pray for the dead. The action is so spontaneous, so all but inevitable, that only the most compulsive theological case against it would deter me. And I hardly know how the rest of my prayers would survive if those for the dead were forbidden. At our age, the majority of those we love best are dead. What sort of intercourse with God could I have if what I love best were unmentionable to Him?
I believe in Purgatory. The right view returns magnificently in Newman’s DREAM. There, if I remember it rightly, the saved soul, at the very foot of the throne, begs to be taken away and cleansed. It cannot bear for a moment longer “with its darkness to affront that Light”.
Our souls demand Purgatory, don’t they? Would it not break our heart if God said to us, “It is true, my son, that your breath smells and your rags drip with mud and slime, but we are charitable here and no one will upbraid you with these things, nor draw away from you. Enter into the joy”? Should we not reply, “With submission, sir, and if there is no objection, I’d rather be cleaned first.”… “It may hurt, you know”…“Even so, sir.”
I assume that the process of purification will normally involve suffering. Partly from tradition; partly because most real good that has been done me in this life has involved it. But I don’t think the suffering is the purpose of the purgation. I can well believe that people neither much worse nor much better than I will suffer less than I or more. The treatment given will be the one required, whether it hurts little or much. End of Reflection
- What Benedict XVI and C.S. Lewis and Saint John Henry Newman intimate is that if we should appear before Jesus in all His glory and find ourselves imperfectly purified, we will dive headlong into Purgatory in our eagerness to attain the glory that awaits us, for the soul cannot bear for a moment longer “with its darkness to affront that Light.”
THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS – The Bigger Picture!
CCC 1474. The Christian who seeks to purify himself of his sin and to become holy with the help of God’s grace is not alone. The life of each of God’s children is joined in Christ and through Christ in a wonderful way to the life of all the other Christian brethren in the supernatural unity of the Mystical Body of Christ, as in a single mystical person.
CCC 1475. In the communion of saints, a perennial link of charity exists between the faithful who have already reached their heavenly home, those who are expiating their sins in purgatory, and those who are still pilgrims on earth. Between them there is an abundant exchange of all good things. In this wonderful exchange, the holiness of one profits others, well beyond the harm that the sin of one could cause others. Thus recourse to the communion of saints lets the contrite sinner be more promptly and efficaciously purified of the punishments for sin.
CCC 1476. We also call these spiritual goods of the communion of saints the Church’s treasury – the infinite value, which can never be exhausted, which Christ’s merits have before God. They were offered so that the whole of mankind could be set free from sin and attain communion with the Father. In Christ, the Redeemer Himself, the satisfactions and merits of His Redemption exist and find their efficacy.
CCC 1477. This treasury includes as well, the prayers and good works of the Blessed Virgin Mary. They are truly immense, unfathomable, and even pristine in their value before God. In the treasury, too, are the prayers and good works of all the saints, all those who have followed in the footsteps of Christ the Lord and by His grace have made their lives holy and carried out the mission the Father entrusted to them. In this way they attained their own salvation and at the same time cooperated in saving their brothers in the unity of the Mystical Body.
- How blessed we are to enjoy the fullness of the Truth as Catholic Christians! Let us give praise and thanksgiving to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit! Let us beg our Blessed Mother, the angels and saints in Heaven, and the souls in Purgatory to pray for our true contrition and purification here, so that we may go straight to Heaven when we die!
Copyright 2020 Oblates of the Virgin Mary
St. Peter Chanel Church, Hawaiian Gardens, CA
