The month of November has been a traditional time to pray for our beloved dead and to focus on spiritual preparation for our own death as well. This is true for many reasons. After kicking off the month on the 1st with the joyful celebration of the Communion of all the Saints in Heaven, the next day on the 2nd we pray for all the holy souls in purgatory, and in a particular way for all the beloved dead of our families and of our parishes. The weather certainly sets us in the mood to reflect on death, as the glorious color of autumn begins to give way to the bleakness and barrenness of winter.
The seeming sharp contrast between “All Saints” and “All Souls” is not such a contrast after all when we realize that, in order to attain the goal of joyful, glorious communion with all the saints in Heaven, it is necessary to think about death and decide what to do to get ready for it.
The Church has always taught that God is, at the same time, perfectly just and perfectly merciful. In His mercy, He gives us the great gift of His purifying love at the end of our lives, to prepare us for Heaven (“purgatory”). At the same time, if we want to be happy with Him forever in Heaven, He does require us to live in this life in such a way as to be open to His love, obedient to His commandments, and cooperating with His grace.
As usual, the reflections of Our Holy Father Pope Benedict on getting this balance right are much more eloquent than my own could ever be. Here are some of his thoughts on the topic, taken from an address he gave to parish priests.
“[Today many people ignore the question of sin, thinking] God is great, he knows us, so sin does not count; in the end God will be kind to us all. It is a beautiful hope. But both justice and true guilt exist. Those who have destroyed man and the earth cannot suddenly sit down at God’s table together with their victims. God creates justice. We must keep this in mind.
Purgatory for me is an obvious truth, so evident and also so necessary and comforting that it could not be absent… A great many of us hope that there is something in us that can be saved; that there may be in us a final desire to serve God and serve human beings, to live in accordance with God. Yet there are so very many wounds, there is so much filth. We need to be prepared, to be purified. This is our hope: even with so much dirt in our souls, in the end the Lord will give us the possibility; he will wash us at last with his goodness that comes from his cross. In this way he makes us capable of being for him in eternity… Therefore, we must also speak of sin and of the sacrament of forgiveness and reconciliation. A sincere person knows that he is guilty, that he must start again, that he must be purified. And this is the marvelous reality which the Lord offers us [in the confessional]. There is a chance of renewal…This aspect of renewal … is the great promise, the great gift which the Church offers but which psychotherapy, for example, cannot…. We can be healed…. Souls that are wounded need not only advice … but true renewal.”
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