At
this time of the year we focus on the dead and we pray especially for
them. I actually like this time, because for
me it is a kind of healthy focus on reality. The one thing all of us
are sure of is that we will die and it is good to think of that
every so often. Since we believe that we are destined for heaven,
then we have nothing to be afraid of, but it is important not to take
it for granted.
When
we die, probably very few people are ready to come directly into the
intense holiness of God’s presence. It would be too much for us.
Think of when you wake up in the morning and you turn on the bed-side
light. You turn away your eyes because you are not used to the light
yet. Imagine getting the direct light of the sun? It would be unbearable for us. We have to gradually get used to it. Purgatory is
something like this. It is the last stage of being made ready, before
we can come into God’s presence. It is also when we may have to
atone for sins from our lives. People often scoff at this idea, but
think of it this way: if someone had committed a lot of sin during
their life and repented just before they died, would it make sense that they would suddenly be in heaven? The Lord assures us of his
mercy, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have to atone for our sins.
The Lord has also taught us that we can help those who have died by
praying for them. That’s why we dedicate a whole month to
remembering them.
There
was a lady from Austria by the name of Maria Simma (1915-2004). For
many years of her life she experienced a very unusual gift, that is,
she was visited continually by the Holy Souls, who asked her for
prayers. God granted her this gift of interceding for them, no doubt
also to help us to believe in the reality of what happens after
death. When they came to ask her for prayers, many of them would tell
her why they were in purgatory. A short book was written about her a
few years ago, where she was interviewed and what is most interesting
about it, is that what comes across more than anything else is the
mercy of God.
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| Maria Simma (1915-2004) |
One
of the encounters that she had really struck me. She recalls that one
night a young man of 20 appeared to her, asking her to pray for him.
He told her why he was in purgatory. He had been a fairly wild young
man with a bad reputation. He lived in the Alps and one winter his
village was hit by a series of avalanches and quite a number of
people were killed. One night when another avalanche struck, he heard
the screams of people nearby for help and he ran down stairs to help
them. His mother tried to stop him from going outside, knowing there
was a good chance that he would be killed. When he went out he was in
fact killed, but God allowed him to die at this time, because he was
in the middle of doing something so good. In other words, God took
him when he was at his best. I think that this is a wonderful way to
understand what happens when people die. God will do everything He
can to help us. Such is the mercy of God. God will always give us the
benefit of the doubt.
St.
Pius of Pietrelcina, better known as Padre Pio, also experienced the
same gift and he said that more people came to him from Purgatory
asking for prayers, than pilgrims on earth. I have no doubt that one
of the reasons why God gave him this gift, was to help us understand
the reality of what happens after death. Most people need to go
through some kind of purification when they die and while it is good
to shed tears for them, we can help them by praying for them and
offering the mass for them, which is the most powerful prayer we
have.
When
we die there can only be three things: heaven, hell, or purgatory. If
heaven is real and we have free will, then we must be able to lose
heaven too. If we had no option but to go there, then we wouldn’t
have free will. If heaven is the total fulfilment of being in God’s
presence, light, beauty, happiness and the company of other people we
love, then to lose it would be to be left with the opposite, that is,
darkness, pain, isolation, hatred and the knowledge of knowing that
we have lost the possibility of eternal happiness. God does not send
people to hell. People choose hell by the way they live, rejecting
God and everything to do with God. Many places where Our Lady has
appeared, she has shown the visionaries heaven, hell and purgatory,
to remind us they are real. It is not something we should take
lightly.
What
about people who no longer go to Church, or no longer practice their
faith. Just because they don’t practice, doesn’t mean they don’t
believe in God or try to live the right way. It may just mean that
they cannot relate to organised religion as we do, but we should pray
for them, because having a framework is a great help. Continually
going to church is going to help us stay tuned in to what is
important, to what God is asking us to do and reminding us of what is
right and wrong. It is not so easy to do this by yourself.
What
about people who have never known Jesus? People primarily accept or
reject God by the way they live. Just because they don’t understand
God as we do, doesn’t mean they don’t believe, or that they
reject God. Only God can judge us. Our job is to pray for those who
don’t know God and hopefully to help them come to know him, by they
way we live. Most of the people Mother Teresa’s sisters take in off
the streets in places like Calcutta, are not Christian, but they
don’t try to convert them. They simply love them and allow them to
die with dignity. They say more about what they believe by those
actions than by anything you could say.
If
we make even the smallest effort to live for God, to live as God asks
us, then we have nothing to be afraid of. The Lord continually
assures us of his love and mercy for all who seek him. The important
thing is that we remember that our choices have consequences.
"Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father's house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me, that you also may be where I am."
A book I would highly recommend is The Amazing Secret of the Souls in Purgatory: an Interview with Maria Simma, by Sister Emmanuel of Medjugorje.
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