Handing down the faith

Third Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C

A good story or message deserves more than a single telling. St Luke recognises that others have beaten him to write “accounts of the events that have taken place,” specifically accounts surrounding the life and ministry of the Lord and that of the Church and her early mission. But these other accounts have not deterred him from writing a fresh account, not a fictional make-believe story, but one based on real events and real persons, stories and sayings handed down “by those who from the outset were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word.” He specifically addresses this account to Theophilus for an expressed reason, so that Theophilus “may learn how well founded the teaching is that [he has] received.” Some people may find it strange and even offensive that we are reading a private message from one person to another. But Theophilus, which means “lover of God,” could be a pseudonym addressed to every Christian. For is not every Christian meant to be a “lover of God”?

It is interesting that St Luke uses the Greek word “paredosan,” which comes from the root “paradosis” which is translated here as “handed down.” This is essentially what “tradition” is about - the handing down of the sayings and deeds of the Lord through the witness of the Apostles. Though hand-me-downs are often considered a humiliating badge of poverty, for Catholics the Sacred Tradition that has been faithfully handed down from the Apostles to our present age, are anything but a sign of our impoverishment. In fact, Sacred Tradition together with Sacred Scripture are the greatest treasures of our Church, treasures to be valued, flaunted and displayed for the world to see.

Again, another Greek word that is lost in translation when rendered in English is a word familiar to many of us - “Katechetes” - translated here simply as “teaching.” Sounds familiar? It should – we have the English word “catechesis.” And immediately the gospel takes a leap from the first chapter to the fourth chapter and presents our Lord as the Teacher par excellence. And what is interesting is that the example cited by St Luke is not some innovative new teaching, but our Lord reading from the scroll of the Book of Isaiah. Many would find it ironic that the Eternal Logos, the Word made Flesh, could have chosen to speak on any topic, and teaching something fresh, but instead He delves into the depths of the Old Testament and shows us that His revelation is in continuation to what has already been revealed to, and through the prophets. At the end of the reading, the Lord tells His audience that the text is being fulfilled even as they are listening to Him because He is the One whom the prophecy is pointing to.

For this reason, the first and most important thing that we must remember about handing on the faith is this: everything begins and ends with Jesus Christ. He is the source, the fulfilment and the ultimate climax of revelation, and by extension, of all catecheses. For us Catholics, the Word of God is not just a book to be kept on the shelf nor a text to be merely studied. The Word of God is first and foremost a person - Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh. Pope Francis said, “Christian doctrine is . . . living, is able to unsettle, is able to enliven. It has a face that is supple, a body that moves and develops, flesh that is tender: Christian doctrine is called Jesus Christ.”

For this reason, we cannot and we should not claim to be People of the Book but People of the Living Word of God. We do not worship a book. We worship the One who is the source of divine revelation, the record of which is found in a book we call the Bible but also preserved in the oral tradition of the Church. No one can really claim that they understand the nature of catechesis without realising that its form, its content, and its ultimate goal is Jesus Christ.

The word catechesis, in Greek—katékhéo—comes from the two words kata-ekheo. But kata-ekheo means to “echo down” or, you might say, to “echo precisely.” St. Paul and St. Luke used this word (see, e.g., Lk 1:4 and 1 Cor 14:19) to explain what we are doing when we teach the Christian faith. They are telling us that a catechist and his teaching are supposed to be an echo, a precise echo, of what has been given for instruction. If we are only an echo, then the original voice is someone else’s. The voice of the Master is supposed to resound in our teaching.

This is so humbling for a teacher of the faith. I constantly have to tell myself, “I’m not the real teacher here. Jesus is,” and I have to let the words of John the Baptist be a mantra on my lips: “He must increase. I must decrease” (Jn 3:30). Some of the great thinkers of the patristic era, like Augustine, took this so seriously that they claimed we could not learn anything, except through the illumination of our minds by the light of Christ. But what we can say for sure is that, in catechesis, we are attempting to communicate something that surpasses what the human mind could know by its own efforts. And, if that is the case, then we should take Jesus seriously when He says, “You have One Teacher,” (Mt 23:8), and we should make His words our own when He claims, “My teaching is not mine but his who sent me” (Jn 7:16).

In the 4th century, St John Chrysostom, reflected upon this echoing nature of teaching the faith, wrote that this teaching is not just an echo of the Master, but this teaching is supposed to resound within the heart of our hearers, so much so, that you can see it bear fruit in their lives. St. John Paul II, puts it like this: “Catechesis takes the seed of faith sown by evangelisation and nourishes it so that the “whole of a person’s humanity is impregnated by that word”; it continues to nourish that seed until Christ is born again in that person’s flesh, that he or she might learn to “think like Him, to judge like Him, to act in conformity with His commandments”.” So, my dear parents, catechists and RCIA facilitators, always remember that your job is to echo our Lord. Our Catholic faith is one of imitation, not of innovation - we are called to imitate the Lord in word and deed, not to replace Him with our own ideas, words or deeds. Let Him be the Teacher, the content, and the end of your labours. Catechesis will always begin and end with Him, and He will be the entire way through.

Finally, catechesis is impossible without the Church, without the community. The second reading tells us that though there may be a variety of gifts and ministries, there is only one Body. That is why in today’s Mass we celebrate the commissioning of our catechists - parents, Sunday School teachers and RCIA facilitators - within the context of the Church - the Church carrying on the mission of Christ, sends out disciples who seek to make disciples of others.

Think of this: the task of a catechist is an impossible one, when left to our own powers. We are powerless to convert hearts, and to make the Word of God grow inside of people. We can only plant and water, but He must give the increase (1 Cor 3:6). Conversion is the work of the Holy Spirit. Unless we are anointed and commissioned by the Lord through His Church, our work will be in vain. This should drive us to constantly come back to the only place where we can find refuge and solace for such an arduous task: Holy Mother Church and her bridegroom, the Blessed Lord Jesus Christ.

Remember me at the altar of the Lord

Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed 2021

Most of us have a myopic view of reality, we often only see the small picture and are oblivious to the bigger one. This is a drastic mistake as it often translates into bad decisions, despair or at the other extreme, false optimism. The same could be said about the average person’s view of the Church. For most of us, church refers to, the physical building in which we worship and to the more enlightened, the community of believers of Jesus Christ spread out throughout the world. In the latter understanding of the Church, we often only remember the living members and never the dead.

But traditionally, the Church sees itself as a “bigger tent” - of both the living and the dead. The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains how there are “three states of the Church … at the present time some of his disciples are pilgrims on earth. Others have died and are being purified, while still others are in glory, contemplating ‘in full light, God himself triune and one, exactly as he is'” (CCC 954). Traditionally, these three states have been referred to as the Church Militant, Church Penitent (also known as Church Suffering or Church Expectant) and Church Triumphant. Together, these three make up the Communion of Saints which we profess in the Creed.

In our eagerness to eulogise the dead, we often end up with the mistake of neglecting our duty of praying for the souls in Purgatory, the members of the Church Penitent or Church Suffering. For if our loved ones are already in heaven, they have no need of our prayers. Instead, we pray to those who are in heaven, the Saints, and ask for their intercession. Our funeral Masses would then be redundant since we can already start celebrating the death of our departed brother and sister as a feast.

If you find this ridiculous and even irreverent, then there is still hope. You’ve not entirely lost your Catholic sensibility. The idea of funerals and this particular day in the year, specifically set aside for praying for the dead, is premised on the belief that not all persons who die will immediately go to heaven. In fact, for the vast majority of us, we would most likely be in Purgatory, even if we have lived a fairly good but far from perfect life.

Of course, many people believe that by thinking or speaking of their loved ones in purgatory would mean sullying their memory. This is based on the belief that purgatory is often seen as some kind of negative judgment on the deceased - that the person was far from perfect, that he or she had feet of clay. But rather than a negative judgment, our belief that souls are being purified in purgatory is a positive judgment and one of hope. It means that though persons may not be perfect, there is still hope of their redemption in the ongoing work of God. As St Paul wrote in his letter to the Romans which we heard in the Second Reading, this hope “is not deceptive, because the love of God has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit which has been given to us.” It is a hope not based on human merits but the result of the sacrifice of Christ who “died for sinful men.”

Thus, the Catechism of the Catholic Church explains that “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” (CCC 1030). Souls in purgatory are destined for heaven! Once a soul is purified in purgatory, the baggage of sin and earthly attachments are gone, and they are able to love as God loves and enter into eternal union with Him.

Many of us live with the guilt of not having done enough for our departed loved ones when they were alive. We want to make it up to them but death has robbed us of the opportunity to do so, or that is what we think. In his “Confessions,” St Augustine remembers his mother dying and his brother expressing his concern to St Monica that she would die outside of Rome, rather than in her native country in Africa. St Monica looked at her sons, and said: “Bury my body wherever you will; let not care of it cause you any concern. One thing only I ask you, that you remember me at the altar of the Lord wherever you may be.” Monica was not concerned about the location or ostentatiousness of her tomb. She had only one wish, that her son, now an ordained priest, should offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass for the eternal repose of her soul.

We, too, should make praying for the dead a priority, since it is an act of mercy and love for those who can no longer purify themselves through their growth in the virtues here on earth. This is what our departed loved ones need from us - not stirring and moving eulogies nor memorials, tributes and imposing tombs. If our departed loved ones could speak from beyond the grave, we would most likely hear something similar to what St Monica had requested from her sons, “One thing only I ask you, that you remember me at the altar of the Lord wherever you may be.” For those who feel guilty for not having done their best for their loved ones before their death, this is an opportunity to make up for lost time and effort. This too, is what the Lord desires of us. The Lord in His patience, desires salvation for all and that we love as He loves.

The Church encourages you, therefore, to seek indulgences, pray novenas, fast, make sacrifices and have Masses said for the deceased, especially for those who have no one to pray for them. These acts of charity will increase the love of God in your heart and soul and help those who have gone before us in death. As St Ambrose reminds us, “we have loved them in life, let us not forget them in death.”

Getting it right

Thirty First Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B

Our gospel passage begins with a question posed by a scribe, a scholarly expert of the Law: “which is the first of all the commandments?” His motives are unclear. Why would an expert of the Law seek knowledge from someone who has no formal training in the Law? Is he trying to test our Lord’s knowledge of the Law? Even if his motives are pure and his question is genuine, being a scholar, was he looking for an intellectual answer rather than some insight that would lead to personal spiritual growth?

But our Lord’s response is not just any theoretical answer which academics enjoy brandishing in public to show off their erudition. He is not just reciting some Jewish catechism from memory. If you have paid attention to the first reading you would realise that the first part of the answer given by the Lord is not novel nor ground breaking. In fact, His answer is surprising precisely because of its simplicity and notoriety. The Shema is an affirmation of God’s singularity and kingship, the foundation of Israel’s covenantal relationship with God and principle which underlies all the commandments. Thus, it is the centrepiece of the daily morning and evening prayers and is considered the most essential prayer in all of Judaism.

It is good to note that the Shema was not meant to be an ethical principle but rather a doctrinal one which asserted that there is but one God, who has created all things and who holds all things in existence by His goodness and power. His claim on us is therefore total, calling for a total response at every level of our being.

In prayer, the faithful Jew carries the text literally before his eyes (traditionally, it is recited with the hand placed over the eyes to block out all distractions), on his hands and on the doorposts of his house, so that he is always aware of the most important loyalty in life. It is a reminder that love of God must dominate all our actions and thoughts; it must be always in our minds and thoughts, and must be the guide of all our deeds and motivations.

The second part of our Lord’s answer is a quotation of Leviticus 19:18: “You must love your neighbour as yourself.” If the first part of our Lord’s answer came as no surprise to His listeners, this second part stands as something unique. Our Lord is the first one known to have explicitly combined these two commandments - the doctrinal is now inseparably tied to the ethical. Our love of God is concretised and expressed in our love for fellow human beings.

St Bede in his commentary on this text, wrote: “neither of these two kinds of love is expressed with full maturity without the other, because God cannot be loved apart from our neighbour, nor our neighbour apart from God… There is only one adequate confirmation of whole-hearted love of God - labouring steadily for the needy in your midst, exercising continuing care for them.”

Our Lord then concludes by stating that “there is no commandment greater than these.” The scribe then condescendingly expresses his approval of what the Lord had said, as if the Lord had given the correct answer to a riddle posed by the scribe. This is ironic since our Lord is in no need of this man’s approval nor is our Lord’s knowledge inferior to his. But our Lord seems to accept the affirmation of this scribe graciously as the latter repeats the formula again whilst adding at the end: “this is far more important than any holocaust or sacrifice.’”

Our Lord recognises the wisdom of this man and appears to praise him for his insight: “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” But these words are double edged. This man may not be far from the kingdom because of his knowledge and learning but he is still not in the kingdom. Thus, our Lord was challenging this scribe to go further than his scholarly knowledge.

Our Lord was helping the scribe to understand that the real answer lay not in any theoretical formulary but its real meaning could only be derived from living out the truth that was conveyed by that answer. Yes, many can give the correct answers to doctrinal questions of faith, but the greater challenge would be to live out that truth in a practical way, to put into practice what we profess with our lips - and what better way of putting into practice the faith we profess than to love our neighbour. Christianity is no mere theoretical or philosophical discipline but an ethical one. Knowledge of our faith will do us little good if we do not put into practice what we profess. Likewise, merely showing acts of kindness and doing good without finding its basis in our love for God in response to His love for us is not enough. In the absence of God, the Church will be nothing more than a non-governmental organisation.

Thus, at the heart of our Christian lives as a whole, we must seek to nurture this precious gift of faith: for as we seek to deepen our understanding of the mysteries of our salvation, so we come to perceive more fully the depth of God’s love for us, and thus are drawn, by His grace, to love Him with more and more of our mind, as of our heart. This love incorporates both the vertical and the horizontal - love of God and love of neighbour - as well as the practical and the intellectual – because we were made by God “to know Him, to love Him, to serve Him and be with Him in paradise forever. If like the scribe in today’s Gospel, we truly grasp the primacy of this, then our Lord’s words are also meant for us: ‘you are not far from the kingdom of God’. But, if we should go further than the scribe by putting this faith and love into practice, then we will be rewarded by another set of our Lord’s words, “yours is the kingdom of heaven.”

Provision for the Journey

Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B

The first reading gives us this poignant story of an angel of the Lord providing strength and encouragement in the form of a meal to the prophet Elijah, who is languishing in despair and on the verge of suicide. Think of it as a spiritual “Happy Meal.” This physical sustenance, which is also spiritual in nature, prefigures the Eucharist. The story of Elijah’s bread is also reminiscent of one of the wondrous items found in the fantabulous stories of J.R. Tolkien. Fans of Tolkien may know that he was a devout Catholic and that his writings made no secret of his Catholic faith. Of all the Catholic parallels in his writings, lembas, the Elven way bread, is perhaps the strongest as it bears a striking resemblance to the Eucharist.

The attributes of this Elvish bread and instructions on how to eat it are described in Tolkien’s book, “Eat a little at a time, and only at need. For these things are given to serve you when all else fails… One will keep a traveler on his feet for a day of long labour.” Yes, this bread is strength for the weary and food for the journey!

This is how we describe Holy Communion for someone near to, or in danger of dying - Viaticum, a Latin word which literally means “provision (or food) for the journey”. Just as the characters of Tolkien’s universe received renewed strength and purpose to complete their mission, the Eucharist received as Viaticum, gives renewed strength in body and spirit to those who are sick and dying, and in fact to all of us who trod through the “shadow of the valley of death.” Tolkien was most certainly aware of this connexion when he wrote to his son with these words, “"The only cure for sagging or fainting faith is Communion.”

The allusion to food for the journey is similarly found in today’s gospel - the second instalment to the Bread of Life Discourse. The gospel begins with a controversy: the crowds found it disturbing that our Lord should describe Himself as the Bread that comes down from heaven. They were scandalised not because of His use of this metaphor nor because they thought that He was speaking literally instead of figuratively. He had yet to associate that bread with His flesh. The real reason is that they found it arrogant on His part to even claim that He was on par with both Moses and the manna, which Moses made to fall from heaven.

Last Sunday’s passage gives us the context for today. The crowds had asked the Lord for a sign as proof that He had come from God, and they cited the manna as an example of the kind of sign they’re looking for. In response, our Lord tells them that the manna foreshadowed the “true bread from heaven” that God would give His people, and then He unabashedly announces that He Himself (and ultimately his body and blood in the Eucharist) is the “bread which came down from heaven”. If you understand that the Exodus is the defining event of their identity and covenantal relationship with God, you would understand His audience’s outrage. No one would dare to claim that there is something greater than the event of the Exodus and its hero, Moses. But here comes our Lord Jesus claiming exactly that.

When our Lord says that His flesh is given “for the life of the world”, He means that His flesh is the new manna, the “true bread from heaven” that is intended to sustain all of us on our journey to our heavenly homeland, just as the manna in the Old Testament fed the Israelites on their journey to the Promised Land. But this is no mere equivalence. Our Lord makes this stark distinction: “Your fathers ate the manna in the desert and they are dead; but this is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that a man may eat it and not die.” Although the manna sustained the Israelites on their journey to the Promised Land just as lembas did for the hobbits, neither form of sustenance could guarantee them immortality. Where these foods failed, the Eucharist succeeds in providing us with the antidote to death and the elixir immortality.

The Eucharist quite literally sustains our spiritual lives. Without it, as the Lord says, we “have no life” in us. In other words, it helps to sustain the life of grace within us, the grace that we receive at baptism and that we believe will flower into the life of heaven once we die, just as earthly food sustains our physical lives. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church explains, the Eucharist “preserves, increases, and renews the life of grace,” “separates us from sin,” and “preserves us from future mortal sins” (CCC 1392-1393, 1395). The Eucharist is food for our journey home, food that helps us to survive the hostile desert of this world and to arrive safely at our heavenly homeland.

As we witness how this pandemic continues to claim new victims despite severe lockdown measures and without any hint of an end to this suffering, I can assure you of this, just when you feel like giving up and resigning yourself to despair, our Lord will send help from heaven, as Elijah discovered in the first reading.  Like Elijah’s bread, which took him from black despair to strength of purpose and clarity of mission, the Eucharist can take us from the darkness of the moment and empower us for the voyage ahead. For now, you cannot receive our Lord in Holy Communion in a physical way, but only do so spiritually. But do not lose sight of your purpose and God’s sovereignty over our situation. He will not let us be tested beyond our endurance but will continue to feed us with the spiritual food of His invisible grace until He can feed us with the true bread from heaven, the Eucharist, when you return to church.

In a letter to his son, Michael, Tolkien gives the following advice, an advice which is most certainly meant for us all, especially today,

“Out of the darkness of my life, so much frustrated, I put before you the one great thing to love on earth: the Blessed Sacrament… There you will find romance, glory, honour, fidelity, and the true way of all your loves on earth, and more than that: Death: by the divine paradox, that which ends life, and demands the surrender of all, and yet by the taste—or foretaste—of which alone can what you seek in your earthly relationships (love, faithfulness, joy) be maintained, or take on that complexion of reality, of eternal endurance, which every man’s heart desires.”

Mission of the Trinity, Mission of the Church

Most Holy Trinity

Today on this Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, it is logical and expected of priests to attempt to explain the central and yet, most inexplicable doctrine of faith, that is to try to reconcile our Christian belief that there is only One God with the correlative belief that God exists as Three distinctive persons. If any doctrine makes Christianity Christian, then surely it is the doctrine of the Trinity. St Augustine once commented about the Trinity that “in no other subject is error more dangerous, or inquiry more laborious, or the discovery of truth more profitable.”

If this doctrine is of such great import, then surely it must be the one most familiar to every Christian. But here lies the paradox: when it comes to the doctrine of the Trinity, most Christians are poor in their understanding, poorer in their articulation, and poorest of all in seeing any way in which the doctrine matters in real life. Someone once said, “The trinity is a matter of five notions or properties, four relations, three persons, two processions, one substance or nature, and no understanding.” After hearing our explanations for years, I guess you either understand or you don’t. So, I’m going to take a different approach this year, an approach that is inspired by this year’s special focus – the Extraordinary Mission Year. Instead of talking about the nature of the Trinity, I will speak of its mission, what theologians call the economical Trinity. In fact, it would not be too bold on my part to argue that the Trinity, Mission and the Church can never be fully understood apart from one another. The Church is the icon of the Most Holy Trinity and the mission of God is the origin of the Church’s mission.

If they are so interconnected, then we must first understand the mission of the Most Holy Trinity, before we can understand the mission of the Church. The Trinitarian mission is succinctly summarised in four paragraphs of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

The first paragraph spells out the plan or the point of the mission - The Father “destined us in love to be his sons” through "the spirit of sonship" (Eph 1:4-5, 9). Love is the source and the motivation. (CCC 257)

The second paragraph then speaks of this divine plan as the common work of all three divine persons. However, each person does the work according to his unique personal qualities. “One God and Father from whom all things are and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom all things are, and one Holy Spirit in whom all things are” (The Second Council of Constantinople). But the qualities of the three divine persons are revealed in the missions of Jesus and the Spirit, who both proceed from the Father. (CCC 258)

What then is the content of this mission? Well, it is simply to reveal each Person of the Most Holy Trinity. The Christian life is a communion with all three persons. And we certainly cannot enter into any relationship without first knowing the person whom we wish to relate to. Knowledge precedes love. (CCC 259)

Finally, who is meant to be the beneficiary of this divine plan? The Catechism affirms that this invitation is not just limited to a few elite individuals but is extended to all. God wants every creature to enter into the unity of the Trinity. (CCC 260)

So the mission of the Church, the mission of every Christian, is derived from the very nature of the Godhead. “The pilgrim Church is missionary by her very nature, since it is from the mission of the Son and the mission of the Holy Spirit that she draws origin, in accordance with the decree of God the Father” (Ad Gentes, 2). The Father sends the Son, the Word, who becomes one with us in Incarnation, and they both send the Holy Spirit to us, thus enabling us already to be spiritually connected to the Trinity as the Spirit makes us members of the Body of Christ. But the picture does not finish here: just as the Word and the Spirit are sent, so are we. Pope Francis reminds us that “this “divine family” (the Most Holy Trinity) is not closed in on itself, but is open. It communicates itself in creation and in history and has entered into the world of men to call everyone to form part of it. The trinitarian horizon of communion surrounds all of us and stimulates us to live in love and fraternal sharing, certain that where there is love, there is God.” That is why the Church, and we the members, are sent out into the world to be the salt of the earth and the yeast through which the whole of humanity will grow and respond to the calling that we all share.

Christ Himself has prepared us for that mission when He says that everything that the Father has belongs to the Son and what the Son has belongs to the Father, and He prays for us, that our unity may also be mirrored in that perfect unity. We are to grow into that unity through the Spirit who will lead us to the fullness of truth. This is not a call for a forced egalitarianism or blind conformity, but a call to love one another in freedom, for there can be no true love if there is no real freedom. Love is at the heart of the life of the community, the life “in communion,” a mirror of the inner life of the Most Holy Trinity. And that is why love is God’s greatest gift to us. As St Paul assures the Romans that in the midst of their human suffering, “the love of God has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit which has been given us.” This love can be nothing other than His own Triune love. In other words, we have confirmation that suffering in this world does not lead us away from God but toward God.

Perhaps, then, it is time for us to renew our mission once more: to share and to reach out to others in this fragmented and divided world who are in need of healing and reunification. Only God can destroy the division, the hatred, the hostility and the separation rooted in man, with this gift of love. God takes the first step in reunifying us with Himself and with each other. It is He who approaches and walks in communion with those who were far from Him. He eradicates the hatred buried deep inside humanity. He makes brothers and sisters of those who were once separated and reunites them in Him. He makes them a community, which is the Church. The Church was born from the overcoming of all hatred, sin and every barrier, all sources of division. This is the mission of God, the Most Holy Trinity. But it is also the mission of the Church. The Church finds its origins in the Most Holy Trinity, and cannot and must not be separated from its source. The Church’s horizon is God’s horizon, the Church’s mission is God’s mission. As we were forgiven, reconciled and made one, so now are we sent with a similar mission to forgive, to reconcile and make one with all whom we meet.

It’s good to always remember that mission, rather than it being simply something the Church does, is first and foremost an action of God, the Most Holy Trinity. The Father sends the Son, and both send the Holy Spirit to us, and the Spirit makes us members of the Body of Christ. And now, we too are sent out into the world to draw all others into this communion of grace and love. The Church in her mission never replaces God or God’s work. Rather, the Church through participation in and witness to God’s mission, makes the invisible work of God visible.

We recall the words of our Holy Father, Pope Francis, “The feast of the Holy Trinity invites us to commit ourselves in daily events to being leaven of communion, consolation and mercy. In this mission, we are sustained by the strength that the Holy Spirit gives us: he takes care of the flesh of humanity, wounded by injustice, oppression, hate and avarice.”

Purged by Love

Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed

Yesterday we remembered all the saints, both named and unnamed. Today, we remember those who have passed from this life with faith, hope and trust in the promise of eternal life. It is so much easier to just simply believe that those in the second category automatically fall into the first that is, all our departed loved ones are already in heaven and enjoying beatific vision. But that is something we can only hope for and can never be certain unless the Church definitively declares them saints, what we call canonisation.

At the root of today’s commemoration is the question: What happens to us when we die? If our belief is that death is the end, then it doesn’t make any difference: there is nothing more. This, of course, is not our belief as Catholics. We believe that the life of every individual matters to God. We believe that there is life-after-death; we believe in the Resurrection; we believe that when we die, the person we are lives on; the person does not die; and we believe that this person will live for all eternity, eventually with a resurrected body – just like our Lord Jesus Christ.

Many of us here are carrying the memory of a deceased spouse, parent, child, or best friend deep in our hearts. It is our wish, it is our desire, it is our hope, and for some, it is even our belief, that our loved ones are “in peace” in Heaven, as the Book of Wisdom so comfortingly assures us. But the truth is that we do not know this for a fact. Canonisation involves a long and stringent process of determining whether someone is in heaven or not. But very often, at the time of the death of a person, we can never come to that conclusion with absolute certainty. We should avoid a widespread heresy that is so prevalent today, that hell does not exist and presumes that basically everyone and anyone who dies somehow automatically gets upgraded to heaven no matter what life they lived here on earth. If this be the case than what we’re doing today at this Mass and what we do at every funeral would be basically a big waste of time.

So, what is the proper attitude we should have toward the salvation of those we know who have died? The first thing is that we shouldn’t judge them. With our finite capacities, we cannot know what’s really in another’s heart. We see appearances but only God sees the heart. In some cases, we extend funerals even to those who commit suicide because we don’t know what was in the person, that led to the decision. The only time we do refuse funeral is when the person made it absolutely clear that he was doing it for reasons contrary to the Catholic faith. On the other hand, we’re not to judge people to be saints in heaven either. A person might seem to be a great father or a loving mother, or a generous philanthropist, but we might not know of their dark hidden secrets or ulterior motives. For that reason, we, as Catholics, leave all the judging to God. And because we don’t know, we hope for their salvation and we pray for their salvation.

That is why praying for the dead is so important. When we say that we pray for the dead, we are ultimately saying that we believe in this reality called purgatory. Unfortunately, there has been a lot of misunderstanding concerning this doctrine. Some have thought that we “go” to purgatory and then, we are judged as to whether we go to heaven or hell. Others see this as a mini-hell for those who didn't quite make it all the way into heaven. If purgatory is a mini-hell, it explains why so many people choose to canonise the dead as if this was a quick “Get out of Jail” bonus card. 

So what is purgatory? To begin with, let's look at the word “purgatory” which comes from the old Latin word “purgare,” which means “to cleanse” or “to purge.” So you can think of purgatory as a time of cleansing or final purification in preparation to spend eternity in the presence of God. Citing Pope Gregory the Great, the Catholic Church teaches that “all who die in God’s grace, 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.” (CCC 1030)

The next question is why is purgatory necessary? Can’t we just get to heaven as we all hope to one day? Well, the Church teaches that to enter heaven, one must be completely attached to God and radically detached from all sin and everything that is not of God. “Nothing unclean shall enter heaven” (Rev. 21:27). There are many who do not live and die with that type of purity of life and hence they need to be purified to enter into the kingdom in which God is all in all. So what about people who say a fundamental “yes” to God, but drag their feet, clinging to some “small” sins, nursing some attachments to the evil that they’ve supposedly renounced?  Purgatory is the process after death where these attachments, the umbilical cord which binds people to the old world, are cut so that people can be free to enter into the life to come.  It is the hospital where the infection of sin is eliminated.  Purgatory is not a kind of temporary hell. Hell is eternal separation from God, but purgatory facilitates our eternal union with Him.

The next question which follows, did the Church just make this all up? Is this teaching about praying for the dead and purgatory unbiblical and just man-made? The answer is definitely no. The teaching on purgatory and praying for the dead finds its source in scriptures. The earliest Scriptural reference to prayers for the dead comes in the second book of Maccabees. Since Protestants reject the idea of praying for the dead, this book is not included in their canon (collection of books in the Bible). The second book of Maccabees tells how Judas Maccabee, the Jewish leader, led his troops into battle in 163 B.C. When the battle ended he directed that the bodies of those Jews who had died be buried. As soldiers prepared their slain comrades for burial, they discovered that each was wearing an amulet taken as booty from a pagan Temple, a violation of the Law. So Judas and his soldiers prayed that God would forgive their sins.

Second Maccabees tells us, very succinctly, “It is a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they might be loosed from their sins” (2 Macc 12:45). The Catechism of the Catholic Church says, “From the beginning the Church has honoured the memory of the dead and offered prayers in suffrage for them, above all the Eucharistic sacrifice, so that, thus purified, they may attain the beatific vision of God. The Church also commends almsgiving, indulgences, and works of penance undertaken on behalf of the dead” (CCC 1032). In God’s plan of salvation, our deeds of love offered in union with Christ’s own sacrifice may help others. Christ calls us to be co-redeemers with Him. Just as His passion, death and resurrection brought salvation to the whole human race, so our deeds of love united to His, by God’s own design, can help those who have gone before us. It is a spiritual work of mercy.

Let’s be honest. The vast majority of us will not go immediately to heaven after judgment because we’re not living as true saints in this world but are regularly making compromises with our faith. And because of this, the vast majority of people will need prayers after they die. We would need a lot of prayers. So we need to take these things seriously – our funeral liturgy is meant to worship God and beg His mercy for the dead and not an opportunity to glorify or canonise the dead. We need to start offering masses for the dead because there is no greater prayer, there is no greater sacrifice, than the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, which re-presents the Sacrifice of Our Lord on Calvary. It’s time to visit the graves of our loved ones, not just to remember them but to pray for them, not just once a year but as often as possible. As St Ambrose of Milan taught us, “We loved them in life, let us not forget them in death.”