At this time of the year we focus on the dead and we pray especially for them. I actually like this time of praying for the dead, 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 focus on 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.
What will happen when we die? We will be just as alive as we are now, but in the spiritual world. When you see someone die, it is quite a spiritual experience, because one minute there is a living breathing person and the next the body just stops and somehow you know that something has gone. The body that is left in front of us is not the person, only their body. Their soul is gone.
Jesus teaches us that there is heaven and hell. He referred to both of them many times and continually warned us not to take it for granted. Many people choose heaven, that is, they choose God. Heaven is really the definition of what we call happiness, because happiness is our complete fulfilment in every way and being reunited with our loved ones again, but it also means a conscious choice on our part. St. Paul writes, ‘Go on working out your salvation in fear and trembling’ (Phil 2:12).
This choice is an ongoing choice that we make by the way we live. Just because we fall into sin doesn’t mean that we are rejecting God, so long as we keep turning back to God. We do our best to live as God calls us to, but we need never be afraid of not being good enough, because it is the Lord himself who makes it possible. It doesn’t depend on us reaching a certain standard. It is God who makes it possible, but we must choose God.
Hell is also a reality. If heaven is real and we have free choice, then it must be possible to reject life with God. And if we reject life with God, we will be left with the opposite. If heaven is love, joy, contentment, light, peace and being with our loved ones, then to reject that means being left with the opposite: darkness, hatred, isolation, and the eternal pain of knowing that we have rejected our chance of happiness. It is the great separation. It is hard to get your head around the idea that people do reject what God offers, but the Lord tells us that does happen. Many people reject the idea that a loving God would send anyone to hell, but God doesn’t send anyone to hell, it is people who reject God. God created us to be with him, but God won’t force us. Right up to the last moment of our lives it will be possible to turn back to God, but we must choose it and mysteriously many people don’t.
In Fatima in 1917, Our Lady asked that one prayer would be added to the rosary and what is amazing is that the Church accepted this and did add it to the rosary. The Church doesn’t often accept something from what is called private revelation. The prayer is said at the end of each decade of the rosary and it is simply known as the Fatima Prayer:
O my Jesus, forgive us our sins.
Save us from the fires of hell.
Lead all souls to heaven,
especially those who are in most need of your mercy.
Our Lady mentions hell. ‘Save us from hell.’ ‘Lead all souls to heaven.’ Heaven and hell are a reality.
Then we also talk about Purgatory, which is another idea that many people reject.
When we die, probably not that many 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. We turn away our eyes because we 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, or purified, before we can come directly into God’s presence. It is also when we may have to atone for sins from our lives. Think of it this way: if someone had had lived a very evil life, but repented before they died, what would happen? If they immediately went to heaven it would make a mockery of God’s justice. Sin is what separates us from God. The more we sin, the more we distance ourselves from God, because sin cannot exist in God’s presence. So if someone who lived an evil life and repented at the last moment, there would need to be some way of purifying them of the effects of their actions. They would need to be purged in some way, or atone for the evil they had committed. Only then would they be able to come into God’s presence. So Purgatory is a mercy of God which allows anyone who repents to be purified so that they can be able for heaven.
The Lord has also taught us that we can help those who have died by praying for their souls. 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 (the souls in Purgatory), 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. The book is called Purgatory and the Amazing Secret of the Holy Souls: an Interview with Maria Simma.
This is how she describes her first encounter
Well, I saw a complete stranger. He walked back and forth slowly. I said to him severely: “How did you get in here? Go away!” But he continued to walk impatiently around the bedroom, as if he hadn’t heard. So I asked him again; “What are you doing?” but as he still didn’t answer, I jumped out of the bed and tried to grab him, but I grasped only air. There was nothing there, So I went back to bed, but again I heard him pacing back and forth. I wondered how I could see this man, but I couldn’t grab him. I rose again to hold onto him and stop him walking around; again, I grasped only emptiness. Puzzled, I went back to bed. He didn’t come back, but I couldn’t get back to sleep. The next day, after Mass, I went to see my spiritual director and told him everything. He told me that if this should happen, I shouldn’t ask, “Who are you?: but “What do you want from me?” The following night, the man returned, definitely the same man. I asked him, “What do you want from me?” He replied: “Have three Masses celebrated for me and I will be delivered.” So I understood that it was a soul in Purgatory. My spiritual father confirmed this. He also advised me never to turn away the poor souls, but to accept with generosity whatever they asked of me.
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 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.
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. 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.
God helped St. Peter to understand this and Peter explained it saying, “And so I have come to realize that God has no favorites, but that anyone who fears God and does what is right, is acceptable to him.” (Acts 10:35)
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 or afraid. There are many rooms in my Father’s house… if there were not would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you with me, so that where I am, you also may be.” (Jn 14)
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