22nd Sunday after Pentecost 5.11.06 Purgatory
If a disaster struck and we were surrounded on all sides by sick and dying people, we would try to look after them, would we not?
The motivation in such a case would be the highly visible and audible suffering which we could not escape even if we wanted to.
We just could not ignore people lying all about us and moaning in pain.
What we are doing on All Souls Day, and whenever we pray for the dead, is precisely the same thing.
We are helping people who are helpless; people who are moaning in pain and in dire need of whatever help we can give.
It is not so easy to maintain the motivation in this case because we cannot see or hear their distress.
It is so easy to forget the dead – forget at least their distress . We remember those we love, but even then do we think to pray for them?
We might be more conscious of our own pain in missing them, but what of their pain as they experience the purifying fire of purgatory?
Part of the problem today is the assumption that many make of instant entry to heaven.
Read the funeral notices or go to a funeral and there will always be a very clear statement that the deceased person has gone to heaven and is already enjoying eternal bliss.
It may be so, but it is likely that most people would spend some time in Purgatory before they move on to Heaven.
And Purgatory, by all the teachings of the Church and the witness of the saints and mystics – is a painful place.
Yes there is the joy of knowing that salvation is assured, but there is also the intense pain of being purified from every sin and every kind of sin we have committed in life.
We see in all its clarity our own grubbiness in the light of God’s glory. It is, we can imagine, like being embarrassed or humiliated, only a hundred times worse than we have experienced on earth.
So there is pain in purgatory. We might think the dead do not need to worry because they will be released. But think if you were trapped in a ditch and people were passing by. You know eventually you will be released, but you are still suffering while you are in that position.
What if everyone said to you: Don’t worry, pal, someone will get you out one day – but noone actually did get you out and you were still there a hundred years later.
Some of the suffering souls must feel like that.
In the Church there has been a marked decrease in prayer for the dead – due in part to the assumption of an easy heaven, and in part due to a decline in any sort of prayer.
We must do our bit. We are surrounded on all sides by people in distress. It’s bad enough on earth but we have this other world where there may be millions of people trapped in the state of sin in which they died and they need us to pull them out of the ‘ditch’.
We don’t know who is in purgatory, and we are not sure whom we are helping with our prayers, but we do know we are helping someone, and that is enough motivation.
It is a work of mercy to pray for the dead and we may need someone to do the same for us.
(Though in our case we will take the lesson that we will try to be purified before we die, not after).
To keep the motivation just see in your mind that people are being relieved and released from pain when you pray for them, and the more you pray the more this is happening.
We can forget them because we cannot hear their cries, so we make a special effort to keep them always in mind.
