Purgatory, a School of Hope and Love

This is a computer-generated transcription that has been included to make the homily searchable.  It has not been verified by the author. 

“O God. You are my God, whom I seek. For you, my flesh pines and My soul thirsts like the Earth, parched, lifeless and without water.”  So, today we have this great commemoration of all the souls, all the holy souls in Purgatory, and where the Church mobilizes us to come together, to intercede and to offer this holy sacrifice for them. And it’s one of the important things about this feast, is just to recall that Purgatory exists, because many Catholics have forgotten about Purgatory, like we no longer talk about it. As far as I know, Catholics are the only one, well, almost the other religions don’t have something. Don’t have Purgatory, the same belief in Purgatory, and our protestant brothers and sisters don’t believe in it either. So, it’s even more important that we Catholics remember. And we have as a special reminder in our little shrine right outside, we have a shrine which was made to the holy souls. We have an account of St Faustina, and I’ll read that to you. It said, “St Faustina one day, was asking the Lord who He wanted her to pray for, and He said that He would reveal it to her in the next night. And she said, “The next night, I saw my guardian angel who ordered me to follow him. In a moment, I was in a misty place full of fire in which there was a great crowd of suffering souls. They were praying fervently, but to no avail for themselves. Only we can come to their aid.” So that’s an important point, that the souls in Purgatory cannot help themselves, but we can help them. Her account goes on. “The flames which were burning them did not touch me at all.” So, this is not the flames of hell, but this is the flames, the suffering of Purgatory. “My guardian angel did not leave me for an instant. I asked these souls what their greatest suffering was.” What is the greatest suffering of these souls in Purgatory? “They answered me in one voice.” So that is, this is for all of them, “that their greatest torment was longing for God.” “Their greatest torment was the longing for God.” So, it’s a very holy desire there, and the intensity of their desire to be united to God, to be fully united to Him. And since they are not yet in that full union in Purgatory, they are suffering. “I saw our Lady visiting the souls in Purgatory. The souls call her the Star of the Sea. She brings them refreshment. I wanted to talk with them some more, but my guardian angel beckoned me to leave. We went out of that prison of suffering. I heard an interior voice which said, ‘My Mercy does not want this, but justice demands it.’ Since that time, I am in closer communion with the suffering souls.” And so, St Faustina, in her diary, gives a number of accounts, and I’ll read to you a few of them in a moment, of her interaction with the souls in Purgatory. And so as if in this time, in this time that we’re living, and it’s especially important for our little Mission of Divine Mercy, one of the great mercies that the Lord wanted us to do was for the souls in Purgatory. And that’s something that we can all do. It doesn’t take money; it doesn’t take health. All of us can come to the aid of souls in Purgatory. In fact, the very sacrifices of maybe not having a lot of money or not having good health can actually make us more able to help the souls in Purgatory. So, this is a mercy that all of us are capable of doing. So just first, I’ve often, speaking over the years, because I think it’s very important about Purgatory. So, some of you have heard me talk about this a lot, but we also have new people, so I want to go over this. So, what is Purgatory? So, the Catechism says, “all who die in God’s grace and friendship,” so these are not the souls that have rejected God and are on the path to hell, but all who die in God’s grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified”. So, in God’s grace and friendship, but not yet perfectly purified, “are indeed assured of their eternal salvation.” And so, the souls in Purgatory no longer have the anxiety of getting to Heaven. I figured one of our friends, Dennis Brown, who used to say, if I can just slide into Purgatory, he’s so happy, just get in, just barely into Purgatory; because at least the souls know that they’re assured of Heaven. “But after their death, they undergo purification so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of Heaven.” And so Purgatory is that place of purification for Heaven. And sister, a number of years ago, in a message for someone, there was this very beautiful passage that the Lord gave her. It said, “Purgatory is nothing else than the great school of love.” So, I thought that was a very beautiful explanation – Purgatory the great school of love, where God’s children learn how to love what they were not able to learn during their life on earth. So, the opportunity to complete the love, the school of love, the growth in love that we weren’t able yet to do on this earth. And it goes on to say, “it is where they are also healed, made whole, restored, in order to become the living tabernacles of His love and all its fullness.” So again, I think that’s very beautiful understanding of Purgatory, where they are also healed, made whole, restored, in order to become the living tabernacles of His love and all its fullness. So, a special place of God’s love and mercy. And St Catherine of Genoa, who had a lot of mystical experiences that helped her understand the life that comes after this life here on earth. She says that – I’ll read you what she says, well, she says that in her experience, she saw Heaven opened. “The gates of Heaven opened.” She said, “I see that as far as God is concerned, paradise has no gates, but he who will, may enter. For God is all mercy, and His open arms are ever extended to receive us into His glory.” So, she says, as far as God is concerned, Heaven is wide open. And she said, the souls who end up in Purgatory are souls who they themselves realize, because in the light of God’s – after this death, – when the light of God’s truth shines on their souls, they see all that in their souls is still impure and needed to be purified.” You can think, for instance, like a bride getting ready for her wedding, she wouldn’t want to just run into the wedding all dirty, with her hair all disheveled and just a bunch of old clothes on. If she realized that, of course, she’d want to get all ready so she can be beautiful for the wedding. And so, what St Catherine of Genoa is saying? She’s not saying it’s God who’s excluding these souls, she says it’s the souls themselves who don’t want to appear, couldn’t bear to appear. They’re anxious to be in God’s presence, but they couldn’t bear to be in God’s presence with impurity, with stain, and so it’s they themselves who go to Purgatory. And even though Purgatory is painful for them, they’re very anxious to go to it, because they know that that’s where they’ll be purified. And they would much rather suffer that pain and come into God’s presence pure and resplendent than not, and so that it’s the souls themselves. And she says that there’s many levels in Purgatory, because what each person needs. Some people need very intense purification. Some people need just a very light purification. And the souls know exactly what they need, because in the clarity of God’s light, they know exactly what they need. So, the souls themselves go to where they know. So that’s a very different sense of Purgatory, not God excluding it, but the souls themselves willingly throwing themselves into Purgatory, and glad to do it, even though it is suffering, because that’s their path to being able to enter into God’s presence. And she says the souls who end up in hell, she says it’s the souls themselves who they have rejected God, and they can’t stand to be in God’s presence, so they themselves cast themselves into hell. So that’s these experiences of St Catherine Genoa. And so, as I say that Purgatory is adapted to what each person needs. And so the souls in Purgatory are suffering. So, sometimes we focus on the suffering that they have. Their suffering is great, but their hope, they know they’re short of Heaven, so they’re full of hope. Purgatory is a great place of hope, because they know they’re assured of Heaven, and they’re on the road to Heaven. And so, as St. Faustina’s experience showed her that we can help these souls. The Lord said to St Faustina, “enter often into Purgatory, because they need you there.” And so, St. Faustina doesn’t recount any other experiences of actually going to Purgatory. But I think maybe what the Lord meant when He says, “Enter often into Purgatory,” He didn’t mean that you would have that same experience, but He meant that her efforts, her prayers and sacrifices, would enter to save those souls. And so that’s something, again, that all of us can do, and especially on this day, but of course, not just on this day, whenever we want we can help these souls. And so, God can permit manifestations of the souls in Purgatory to help remind us to pray for them. There’s souls that have people who love them and offer prayers and sacrifice for them. But then there’s also a lot of souls who maybe don’t have anybody, maybe anybody who knows about Purgatory or anybody thinking about them. And so the Lord can permit the souls to manifest themselves. And so, this is not, this is very different from the practice of trying to conjure up the dead. This is not trying to conjure up. This is God himself who permits the souls to manifest. St Faustina. I won’t read you all of them, but she had a number of experiences. You can find them in her diary. But I’ll just read, I’ll read you this one. So, this was in April 29, 1926, she was still a postulate at the very beginning of her religious life. She said, “when we arrived at the novitiate Sister Henry was dying. A few days later, she came to me.” So, what St Faustina means when she says she came to me, she means she came to me in spirit after her death. “And she told me to go to the mother directress of novices and tell her to ask her confessor to offer one Mass for her and three ejaculatory prayers.” And so the soul is asking for prayers, and especially the Mass. And these accounts of the souls in Purgatory, we hear that so often, asking for prayers and for sacrifice, but especially for the offering of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. And those souls often speak of a great thirst for the Mass because of the power of the sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Jesus. And so that’s good to know, because even though we’re just sinners, God gives us the opportunity not just to offer our own sacrifices, but to unite our sacrifices to the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, in which they take on infinite power. And that’s what we’re doing in this Mass. And we have the opportunity in every Mass to unite our sacrifices. So, she goes on in this experience; she says, “At first, I agreed,” to what the soul was asking, Sister Henry. “At first, I agreed, but the next day, I decided I would not go to Mother directress because I was not sure whether this had happened in dream or in reality, and so I did not go.”  So, St. Faustina is still at the very beginning of her religious life. This is maybe the first experience that she’s had. And she’s not sure whether was this real or was I just imagining.  So, she says,” The following night, the same thing was repeated more clearly.  I had no more doubt. Still, in the morning, I decided not to tell the directress about it unless I saw her, (that is the deceased Sister, Sister Henry) during the day. At once, I ran into her in the corridor.” So, she has this experience of Sister Henry immediately in the corridor, not in the chapel or something, but right there in broad daylight in the corridor. “She reproached me for not having gone immediately, and a great uneasiness filled my soul. So, I went immediately to Mother directors and told her everything that had happened to me. Mother responded that she would take care of the matter. At once, peace reigned in my heart, and on the third day, Sister Henry came to me and said, ‘May God repay you.’” So that seemed like there’s been an immediate result of these prayers and the offering of the Mass. And so there was a mystic who lived in, I don’t know when she died, maybe in, like the 70s or 80s, I don’t remember exactly when, or maybe 90s, I’m not sure. She lived in Austria. Her name was Maria Simma, a very simple lady living in a little village and way up in the mountains in Austria. But she had a lot of experiences, of souls coming to her, asking her for help. It seemed like a special charism that she had, and there was someone interviewed her and wrote a book about her. It’s a great book. I really recommend it. But the title of the book is very simple. It’s very simple and direct. It’s, ‘Get Us Out of Here,’ ‘Get Us Out of Here. ‘And that’s, I mean, that’s kind of the theme of this, of this day, get us out of here. It’s not just to come think about something, it’s to get the souls out of Purgatory. I mean, it’s something like, if you saw someone in a ditch, or like falling down a well, you’d want to try to get them as soon as possible out of there. And so that’s what this day is, to get the souls out of Purgatory. So, it’s not just to think about the souls in Purgatory, it’s to get them out of there, get them out of there by the power of the sacrifice of Jesus and uniting our prayer and sacrifice to them. So, this is another experience of St Faustina. She said, “one evening, one of the deceased sisters who had already visited me a few times, appeared to me. The first time I had seen her, she had been in great suffering, and then gradually these sufferings had diminished. This time she was radiant with happiness, and she told me that she was already in Heaven.” And so, just in these days that St. Faustina has been interceding for her, she has seen her going from a suffering soul in Purgatory to now a soul radiant in Heaven. “Then she came closer to me, embraced me sincerely, and said, ‘I must go now’.” And then, St. Faustina says, “I understood how closely the three stages of a soul’s life are bound together.” That is to say, life on earth, in Purgatory and in Heaven. So, the souls can’t help themselves, but we can help. And if they can’t help themselves, they can help us. Here’s one experience. This is recounted by Susan Tassone. I don’t know if I’m pronouncing her name right – Tassone, T, A, S, S O, N, E. She also wrote a book on Purgatory, and one thing that she recounts is, she says the renowned historian, Cardinal Baronius, relates – a man of great virtue was at the hour of his death. He was battered by evil spirits, because at that moment of great vulnerability, that crucial moment, often times the spirits of evil are trying to attack us, to try to keep us from Heaven. At that moment, suddenly, he saw the Heavens open and 1000s of warriors in white garments coming to his aid. They told him that they were sent to defend him and to gain victory for him, 1000s of warriors. The dying man was greatly relieved and asked his Heavenly defenders who they were. They replied, “We are the souls whom you released. We come to reward your charity and to conduct your soul to Heaven.” What would that be like at the moment of our death, to encounter souls, maybe some souls that we knew, but maybe also souls that we had never known on earth, but who had gone to Heaven with the help of our prayers and were now coming to help us on our way to Heaven. And as Mother Magdelene said at the beginning of Mass, “St. Therese often felt that when she really needed something, she would turn asking the souls in Purgatory for their intercession.” And even just thinking about the soul, just remembering them, there’s graces that we get immediately just by remembering these souls. Because for instance, one thing it reminds us about what’s important, because we get caught up in so many things on this earth, and thinking about the souls in Purgatory remind us of what’s going to be important for all eternity. They remind us how brief this time on earth is, this brief preparation, they help strengthen in us the longing for Heaven and the awareness, the great danger of hell, of damnation. You know, on this earth, lot of times we don’t see justice, right? Lot of times guilty people get away with all sorts of stuff. Lot of times innocent people suffer.  That’s why it’s very interesting to read the accounts of the souls in Purgatory, because as soon as they leave this earth, they enter a realm of justice. Whether it’s terrible condemnation or very painful purification, or a light purification, or the great reward of fidelity to God. But that’s very important for us, because we get discouraged by saying, well, where’s the justice? Well, we don’t see it on this earth a lot of times, but as soon as we leave this brief time on earth, the justice of God is manifested. The justice of God and the mercy of God. as Jesus said to St Faustina, “He’s offering now the gate of His mercy.” And for everyone who doesn’t go through His mercy will have to go through the gate of His justice. But we have the opportunity to go, pass through His mercy. So, one of the things that the souls in Purgatory help do for us is they strengthen us in hope. They strengthen us in hope. Sometimes I remember watching a video where someone was talking about how beautiful their little home was. It was like Heaven on earth. And it makes me think of the Mission of Divine Mercy. I think the Mission of Divine Mercy is like Purgatory on earth. I mean, it’s nice for those who visit, but for those of us who are here, there’s a lot of sacrifices. So, it’s but Purgatory on earth. I mean, maybe that’s not a good tourist attraction appeal. It’s actually could be very helpful. Purgatory on earth, I think I say, like, why wait till after you’re dead? Come get Purgatory over with, come get Purgatory over with. Because, and I read you, this is a little account from St. Therese.  Once, Saint Therese had a confrontation regarding the topic of Purgatory with Sister Maria Febronia, who was not only 67 years old, so much older than St Therese, St Therese was I think, in her 20s at that point, but Maria Fabronia was also the sub prioress. So like the second in command, she had heard that Saint Therese encouraged the novices to believe that they could go straight to Heaven. She did not like this, as she considered this kind of confidence presumptuous, and she reproached Saint Therese. St. Therese tried lovingly and calmly to explain to Maria, Sister Febronia her point of view, but with no success, as Sister Febronia clung to her belief. For St. Therese, God was more Father than judge, and she took the liberty of finally responding, “my sister, if you look for the justice of God, you will get it. The soul will receive from God exactly what she desires.” The year had not passed when, in January 1892 Sister Febronia, together with other sisters, fell prey to the flu and died. Three months later, Saint Therese had a dream where she related to the prioress, which was then documented. And so here is what Saint Therese recounted. “O my mother, my sister Maria Fabronia, came to me last night and asked that we should pray for her. She is in Purgatory, surely because she had trusted too little in the mercy of the good Lord.” Trusted too little in the mercy of the good Lord. “Through her imploring behavior and her profound looks, it seemed like she wanted to say ‘you were right, I am now delivered up to the full justice of God, but it is my fault. If I had listened to you, I would not be here now’.” So, the great opportunity that God is giving us, why there is the revelations of His divine mercy, God doesn’t want any of us to have to go to Purgatory. God wants us to be able to complete our purification here on earth. And we know that there is a lot of opportunity, right? There is a lot of opportunity for purification on this earth. And if we accept that purification, accept the crosses, sometimes very heavy crosses, that we experience on this earth, accepting God’s will for us on this earth, then that purification can take place on earth and that’s much more valuable, for it’s much more effective for our own purification, and not only for ours, but it can also help other souls. So Purgatory is a mercy of God for those who didn’t complete their purification on earth. But it’s much better if we do, by accepting God’s will, complete our purification on earth. And we know that oftentimes people’s life on this earth, there’s a lot of suffering, especially at the end. And that’s very painful to see, but maybe God is finalizing that person’s purification so that they can have a very light purification or maybe go directly into Heaven. That’s what St. Therese was talking about. St Therese, in her short life, especially at the end of her life, she had a lot, a long and painful illness, but she’s saying by trusting in God and by accepting His will and the sacrifices in this life, we can go directly into Heaven. That’s what God wants. And so Purgatory is a grace, a mercy from God. But God doesn’t want us to have to go there. He wants us to be able to go directly into Heaven. And so, to conclude, this day is a reminder to remember and intercede to help free those souls from Purgatory. And we can do that right now in this Mass by offering our prayers and offering our sacrifices. Again, maybe we have some very painful sacrifices in our life that we wish that were not there, but they are there. But we can offer them in this Mass in union with the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus on the cross to help free these souls, and at the same time we offer it for them, we’re asking for them to help us. And I’ll just end by – there’s a prayer, a traditional prayer. My dad would always pray this prayer at the end of our meal, family meals, after giving thanks to God for the meal, he would pray this traditional prayer, “may the souls of the faithful departed through the mercy of God, rest in peace,” “may the souls of the faithful departed through the mercy of God rest in peace.” And I’ll pray that one more time. And if you know it, you can pray it with me. “May the souls of the faithful departed through the mercy of God rest in peace.” Amen. 

KEYWORDS / PHRASES:
Psalm 63:1
Wisdom 3:1-9
Romans 6:3-9
John 6:37-40