Everybody
has their own idea of Heaven. Whether one sees it circling in the eyes of their
children or wafting in the smell of their morning coffee, everybody – dare I
say, even those who don’t believe in eternal life – has an idea about what
‘Paradise’ means for them.
When I
think of Heaven, I often think of Our Lord’s words: ‘In my Father’s house are
many rooms; if it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a
place for you?’ (John 14:2) I imagine a room, set aside for me when I was just
a thought in the mind of God – a willed, necessary thought who came to be
simply because I was loved (I am loved, I always will be!). Allow me to speak
to you of the childish little analogy that takes form in my mind. In my room, I
see my guardian angel dancing around the room fluffing my pillows and baking me
cookies. My Heaven shoes get more sparkly everytime I increase in grace. In
this world, calories don’t exist and there is no pain. There are no goodbyes. I
am embraced in love, sharing in the friendship of the Holy Trinity.
I often muse
on my little room in the mansion of my Lord because it helps me understand the
gravity of sin. When I sin, I imagine my guardian angel closing the door to my
personal mansion in Heaven. Every time I confess, the world I was made for
becomes a reality again.
I know I’ll
see souls in Heaven that I wish I knew on earth, and I also know I’ll reconnect
with souls I now share or did share a connection with. I know I’ll see the
teenagers I minister to and love so much and I know I’ll see members of my
family there. Other members I pray I may share Heaven with, and I pray for them
more fervently than I pray for anything else in my life.
Now, I
know, I know, ‘eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived,
what God has prepared for those who love Him’ (1 Corinthians 2:9), but I can
still meditate on it! Heaven is beyond our wildest contemplations, but even God
spoke analogously in order that we may dare to live for the greatness we were
meant for.
But here’s
the thing – the real reason I’m writing this. Heaven is what we were meant for,
but Heaven is not something that comes about because of some gooey oozy
‘growth’ experience. Heaven is hard work (it’s Hell that is easy). This is why
a very holy priest preached last week that one who does not pray for the Holy
Souls in Purgatory will one day be accountable before God. Praying for the dead
is a necessary act of mercy. Now, there’s no point praying for a damned soul
(they’ve permanently chosen to cut themselves off from God), and there is no
point praying for a soul in Heaven (they’ve won the race already!), so who are
we praying for? We are praying for the souls in purgatory – what we call the ‘Church
Suffering.’
St. Jean
Vianney pleaded with his parishioners to pray for him after his death. He
preached incessantly about his fear that he would spend generations in
purgatory because nobody would offer masses for him after his death, under the
presumption he was already a Saint. We need to pray for the souls in purgatory!
Why do we
need purgatory? To answer this, let’s go back to my little room. Not going to
purgatory would be like me walking in wearing muddy gumboots and treating my
palace like a construction site. I need to be purified and set free from the
consequences of my sins before entering into eternal glory. What do I mean by
the consequences of my sins? Allow me to use another analogy. Imagine a plank
of wood with nails driven into it. If I take the nails out and throw them into
the ocean, as far as I’m concerned, those nails no longer exist. But, the fact
that the nails are gone does not mean the holes in the wood are miraculously
filled! Sin has consequences, and our being forgiven from our sins reconciles
us to God (who takes the ‘nails’ out and throws them in the ocean), but this
does not fill the ‘hole’ created by sin.
Sound
harsh? Far from it. Purgatory – what the
Catechism calls the ‘final purification of the elect’ is, in fact, an act of
mercy. Without this purification, almost all souls would be damned. Instead, the
God who desired friendship with us even to the point of death and suffering
purifies us with the fire of His Sacred Heart. His love fills the holes in our
soul we make every time we sin. But that’s not all. Even more mercifully than
this, we have the opportunity to make reparation even while on earth through
the sacrament of penance. St. Catherine of Siena clarifies to us that souls who
perform worthy penances on earth ‘pay with a penny the debt of a thousand
ducats’ (let’s pretend we know what a ducat is – or, if you don’t want to
pretend, replace ‘ducat’ with ‘dollar’). She helps us understand the importance
of this great sacrament by taking this point further saying that he who waits
for purgatory to purify themselves ‘consents to pay a thousand ducats (dollars)
for that which he might have paid before with a penny.’
Now do we
understand the maternal love and mercy behind Our Lady’s exhortation at Fatima?
‘PENANCE, PENANCE, PENANCE.’ Understand it, because this ‘Star of the Sea’ is
the consolation of the poor suffering souls in purgatory, constantly bringing
them refreshment. Penance is a response to the merciful actions of God, not an act of supernatural spite!
As children
of this most amiable mother, let us always offer prayers for our suffering brothers
and sisters in purgatory. Let us constantly consider the Church Suffering to be
as helpless infants in need of their mother, the Church.
Let us pray
especially during November, dedicated to the Holy Souls.
Then, one day, when we
walk into our little room, we will see them – righteous and white as
snow – so many of them coming towards us and thanking us. We will ask who they
are, and they will say: ‘a poor soul you prayed for in Purgatory.’
My favourite artist, William Bougeareau, once painted
this picture of the angels carrying a suffering soul to Heaven.
The Church teaches this is achieved by our prayers!
The Church teaches this is achieved by our prayers!
