NO PAIN, NO GAIN

A SERMON FOR THE 24th SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Is there one amongst us today who has not experienced the sorrow of having lost a loved one?  If there are those so fortunate here today, they may be assured that, unless death shall strike them first, a time will surely come when they will have to kneel at the side of an open casket, and say goodbye for the last time to someone they deeply love.  This love may have been taken for granted for many years, an unspoken, perhaps even unfelt, attachment to a particular family member, a good friend, even a spouse.  But when the hour of death comes, there comes with it a very rapid realization of its finality.  Suddenly we are faced with the prospect that never again will we have the opportunity of telling, or of showing someone that indeed we do love them very very much.

They are now gone.  Gone in the twinkling of an eye.  And we are faced once again with the questions that have vexed mankind since the original sin of Adam:  “Where have they gone?”  “Where do we go when we die?”

Pity our poor protestant brethren, with their imperfect understanding of life after death.  In spite of the teaching of Holy Scripture which tells us that it is a wholesome thing to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from their sins, these protestants bask in the false hope that all those who believe are saved and go straight to heaven when they die.  But if they’re right, and there is no Purgatory, only Heaven and Hell after death, then why pray for the dead?  If they’re in heaven, they are in no need of our prayers.  And if they are in hell, they are beyond our help altogether.

We Catholics are not so certain where a soul has gone.  And in this uncertainty whether our deceased loved one is in heaven yet, or still suffering in the fires of Purgatory, lies our salvation.  Because this very uncertainty allows us to pray for them.  In fact it makes it our duty to pray for them.  It means we have the opportunity to do something.  Something helpful, concrete.  The possibility that our loved ones are suffering and that we can actually help them, with our prayers, our rosaries, our Masses, by offering up our own crosses, this is a tremendous consolation to us Catholics that others can never know.  What a wonderful thing at a time of terrible sorrow and bereavement, to know that we are still needed by our loved one, and that we can help.  We have not, after all, lost forever that final opportunity to show them that we love them.

The name Purgatory is not mentioned specifically in the Scriptures.  It is a name which the Church simply came up with to describe the purpose of the place.  It is a place of “purging”.  And why do we need to be purged after our death?  Because like the snow that falls upon the ground, our souls gradually gather the grime of the earth.  Our souls may be absolved in the confessional and our sins forgiven.  But something remains, something is left behind when the stain of sin is removed. 

Imagine a little boy who kicks a ball through the neighbour’s window.  He might apologize and be forgiven by the neighbour.  But his parents still have to pay for the broken window.  There is still something owing in justice even after the apology.  Saying sorry, being sorry, is certainly important.  But it’s not enough.

Or think for example if you stole some money, a hundred dollars, from an elderly neighbour.  Afterwards you feel guilty, you go to confession, you ask the priest for forgiveness.  Before he gives you absolution, he will probably ask you a question:  “What have you done with the hundred dollars?”  “Oh, it’s under my mattress.” “And what do you intend to do with it?”  “Well, I want to upgrade my iPhone!”  Don’t expect absolution until you assure the priest that you will restore the money to its rightful owner.  And the absolution he gives will be dependent on the restitution you promise.

And this is as it should be.  To have the opportunity not only to say we’re sorry, but to prove it by trying to undo the evil we have done.  This is easy to understand when we think about the examples above, the breaking of a window, the theft of someone’s property, but how do we undo the evil of an impure thought, for example?  All sins after all are against the justice of God, and reparation must be made.  But there is not always an easy or obvious way of doing so in this life.  Purgatory gives us the opportunity of making this reparation to God after death.  It purges us from all the punishment due to sin, and renders our souls once more as pure and white as the driven snow.  Then and only then shall we be ready to enter into the spotless kingdom of God, that new Jerusalem which knows no imperfections, no stains, no darkness. 

Purgatory therefore is a gift of God.  If we cannot make up to God in this life for the dreadful thoughts, words and deeds we commit against him, we have one last opportunity after death to do so and make us eligible to enter the kingdom of heaven.  It’s a last opportunity, however, that we don’t get to choose or refuse.  After all, we must have already chosen heaven, presumably, if we die in a state of grace.  We are already “saved” at that point.  When our divine Judge sentences us to this final act of expiation, we will be only too happy to obey him, conscious of the reparation we owe to God before we can enjoy our eternal reward.  We will truly see at that point the goodness and mercy of God in giving us this opportunity to “make it up to him.”  Indeed, there is nothing we will want more than to do so.

Nevertheless, the torments of Purgatory are not something to look forward to!  We must make sure that when our time comes for our own purging, it may be as short and painless as possible.  There are three things in particular we need to do, all of them very important.

The first is obvious.  We must strive for perfection here on earth.  “Be ye therefore perfect,” said our Lord, “even as your heavenly Father in heaven is perfect.”  When Christ commanded this, he knew that none of us would ever succeed.  But he looks at our effort, not our success.  We must “strive” for perfection.  That means avoiding sin at all cost, and then practicing the virtues, loving God and neighbour, and offering up every tiny little action, every breath of our lives, to God.  If we’re selfish enough to do it for no other reason than to lessen our own time in Purgatory, this alone will suffice.  But let’s not forget that if we do it for unselfish motives, namely out of pure love of God, rather than to avoid “time in Purgatory”, we’ll actually be a lot closer to that perfection we’re aiming for.

The second thing we need to do is accept all our crosses here on earth.  Often the first thing we do when we are given a cross to bear is to pray that God will take it away.  We should remember to follow the example of Christ and pray at least that God will remove it only if it is his divine will.  But then, if the cross remains, we must accept it.  It’s a gift from God, so let's not be so rude as to refuse it.  We should accept it, not grudgingly, complaining about its weight, or even worse, bragging about our fortitude in bearing it.  But accept it willingly, embrace it even, taking Christ’s sweet yoke on our shoulders, and with our hearts filled with love, follow him.  Follow him if we must all the way to Calvary.  Carry our cross, and if necessary let ourselves be nailed to it.  Because this suffering that we thus choose and accept in this life is voluntary, as opposed to the suffering of Purgatory.  We can freely choose to accept it, and that is worth so very much more in the way of expiating for our sins.  Every little pain we freely accept in this life is worth much more than many days, even years, of time spent afterward in the purging fires of Purgatory.

The third thing we should do is have a great devotion to the Holy Souls.   They are our dear departed, our brothers and sisters in the faith, brethren of the same Mystical Body of Christ that we belong to, no longer members of the Church Militant as we are, but passed on to that other branch, the Church Suffering, where one day we will be, God willing.  So let's pray for the dead, as the Scriptures tell us.  Let's offer up our crosses, offer up our daily sufferings for the alleviation of theirs.  They cannot help themselves in this respect, they are beyond the ability to gain merit for themselves.  But we can help them, and it is our duty to do so.  “Love thy neighbour as thyself.”  And in doing so, let us pray that just as we help them today, so too those who follow us in the faith, our children and all those we leave behind, will one day remember us when we die.

These three ways of preparing for Purgatory are all truly gifts of God.  They are all opportunities for us to lessen the time we will spend there, and we should be grateful to God for them.  This week we celebrate Thanksgiving.  So let's not forget to thank God, not only for all the good things he gives us, but even for the things that seem bad, namely, our crosses.  Because these crosses are not bad things at all, but rather opportunities to offer up our sufferings for the Holy Souls in Purgatory, and to follow our Saviour with the love and devotion we owe him in reparation for our own crimes.  A very Happy Thanksgiving to you all, let's try and make a bit more sense of it this year as we offer up our sincere thanks to God not only with our lip service, but better yet, with our most sincere repentance and generosity in our efforts to make up for all our ingratitude of this past year.