Today, All Souls Day, is about praying for deceased relatives, friends, and other souls in purgatory. This is a particularly difficult homily to deliver for two reasons. First, it touches a topic most of us don’t like to hear about: death and what happens after. We know we can't avoid it. But most of us think if we don't talk about it, it won't happen, at least not for a long time.
Second, I would like to talk about purgatory. One reason it is difficult to speak about Purgatory is the tendency today to say nothing but good about a deceased person. Go to an average Catholic funeral today and listen to all the virtues of the deceased. You might say to yourself, why don’t we canonize her right here and now?
Purgatory, among all the mysteries and beliefs of the Church, makes perfect sense as a doctrine. How many of us think we will be perfect when we die? Unless you are the Virgin Mary, you will have to acknowledge that even the best of us sin seven times a day and so are far from perfect.
Let me give an example from real life. In the first two years of college, during the summertime, I worked in a cement factory making septic tanks and burial vaults. The more expensive burial vaults were lined with asphalt.
So, by the end of the workday, my clothing and I were completely covered in cement and often with cement mixed with asphalt. My clothing had to be laundered and I had to thoroughly shower to get the cement out of my hair and the asphalt and cement from hands and face and arms. All of this cleansing had to take place before I was presentable enough to come to the table for dinner. That work made me hungry for the evening meal.
As we make our way through this life. It's not only cement and asphalt, it's all of the ways in which we have hurt others, sinned and been selfish, offended God and neighbor.
In many ways we've been less than perfect.
We may have gone to confession and been absolved from all these sins. Thank God for that! But when we die, if we are not the Blessed Virgin Mary, we have all the stains of sin and challenges of life still clinging to us. We carry those with us into the next life.
And the Scriptures remind us that we must be thoroughly pure to come into the presence of the living God. So, Purgatory makes perfect sense to me. Coming to purgatory would fill each of us with joy because it would mean that our salvation is assured.
And at the same time, there is this washing, this cleansing, this purgation, if you will, that still needs to take place in our souls. It may need to happen before we are ready to come into the presence God and enjoy His Glory for all eternity.
That community with this God who loves us so much that he would die for us.
Every time we celebrate the Eucharist, we are praying for all those who have fallen asleep in hope of rising to new life.
Amen.
Father Wilfred J. Raymond, C.S.C. (Father Willy), a native of Old Town, Maine, is the eighth of 12 children. He joined the Congregation of Holy Cross in 1964 and was ordained to the priesthood in 1971. He earned a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from Stonehill College in 1967 and a master’s in Theology from the University of Notre Dame in 1971. He served in ministry at Stonehill College (1979-1992), Holy Cross leadership (1994-2000), National Director of Family Theater Productions, Hollywood (2000-2014), and President of Holy Cross Family Ministries (2014-2022). In addition to English, he is conversant in French and Spanish. He remains a diehard fan of the Boston Red Sox, even though he has served as Chaplain for the Los Angeles Dodgers.
