Dear Parishioners and Friends of St. Mary’s of the Lake: 

 

 In the Gospel of Matthew Jesus instructed us, ‘You must be perfected as your heavenly Father is perfect’ (Mt 5:48). Without such perfect holiness, Scripture says: ‘no one can see the Lord [in heaven]’ (Heb 12:14); for ‘nothing unclean shall enter heaven (Rv 21:27). In a Pamphlet put out my Our Sunday Visitor it is written: ‘But how many of us will have become perfect by the time we die, making us ready for heaven?


If we haven’t yet arrived at perfect holiness, does God just give up on us when we die? Or will he simply bypass our free wills to make us instantly perfect when we die, without our cooperation? He certainly doesn’t operate that way in this life. Instead, the Catholic Church teaches, after someone has died in friendship with God, the Lord will bring to completion the process of making that person holy, of purifying that soul, which he had already begun in this life. And that process is what we call purgatory. Why is it God’s ultimate intention for us to become perfect? God wants us to live forever in friendship with him, and He Himself is completely holy --without sin or weakness of any kind.

So, to see God face-to-face in heaven, and to know, love, and enjoy him there fully forever, we must be like him. Heaven simply wouldn’t be heaven unless those who live there are perfected. If we were to bring along with us the sins and weaknesses we have in this life, heaven would be just as full of troubles as our life on earth --troubles that would last for eternity. Such a fate would be more like hell than heaven.’

⬥ Every year, on November 2^nd we celebrate the feast of ‘Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed’ -or All Souls’ Day. The current Catechism of the Catholic Church states: ‘All who die in God's grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven.’ (#1030). The term ‘purgatory’ is used to refer to necessary ‘purging’ or purification before heaven. From the beginning, the church has honored the memory of the dead & offered prayers for them --especially during the celebration of the Holy Eucharist. It was recorded that the earliest Christians, during the persecutions of the first 3 centuries, prayed for the dead. St. Monica, in the 4^th century, asked her son (St. Augustin) to remember her soul in his celebration of the Holy Mass. Let us not forget our loved ones after they pass away. Let us pray that ‘May their souls and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace!’

Fr. Philip