THE PURIFICATION OF THE MEMBERS OF CHRIST

MEMORIAL OF ALL SOULS

Wis 3:1-9; Ps 27:1,4,7,8-9,13-14; Rom 5:5-11; Mk 15:33-39,16:1-6

Our Hope in Resurrection

The Church sets today aside to remember and pray for all the faithful departed. The scripture says that it is a wholesome thing to pray for the dead that God may deliver them from anything impeding their entrance into the heavenly kingdom. Today is suitably chosen by the Church so that immediately after celebrating the victory of the members of the Church who have triumphed over death and evil and are now in heaven, we should pray for the suffering Church. They are members of the Church who departed their mortal lives with their faith in Jesus Christ still intact. They are yet to complete the remission of sins they confessed and received absolution. Because they did not complete the remission of the punishment or penalty due to sins already forgiven while on earth, they go through purgatory to finish up the atonement still required of them by God. We understand the doctrine of purgatory in our conception of the Christian journey to heaven as a journey into the mystery of Jesus Christ. It is a spiritual transformation into Jesus Christ that is ongoing under the direction of the Holy Spirit through our faith in Jesus Christ.

The Holy Spirit arrives in our hearts at our profession of faith at baptism and does not depart from us unless through a mortal sin which snuffs out our spiritual life that he gives and sustains in us. Without mortal sins, the Holy Spirit strengthens our faith in Jesus Christ, buoys up our hope in God to grant us heavenly life, and leads us deeper into the love of God. Paul’s letter to Romans says: “Hope is not deceptive, because the love of God has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit which has been given us. We were still helpless when at this appointed moment Christ died for sinful men.” His death for us was on trust, believing that we will understand the great salvation he wrought for us and love and follow him to death to enter the heavenly life. Thus, the profession of faith in Christ at baptism is a yes to him and an embrace of the death of our sinful self. The baptismal ritual is replete with this meaning, and the white robe and the candlelight represent our new or risen life in Jesus Christ. Henceforth, the death and life processes of Jesus Christ start working in us. The two are at work simultaneously on our members; we say yes to the death of our sinful self to receive new life in Jesus Christ, which becomes fuller and fuller each time we empty or die to self. The Gospel describes how Christ truly died a physical death for us. “When the sixth hour came there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, ‘Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?’ which means, ‘My God, my God, why have you deserted me?’ … But Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last.” He truly died for us, that we may live no more for ourselves but for him.

Subsequently, these two processes mark the life of a Christian, one leading gradually to the death of the sinful self and the other leading to the increase of the new life of Jesus Christ. The latter stops whenever the former stops. Whenever we refuse to accept the death of our sinful self for the love of Jesus Christ, we cease to grow in his spiritual life. These various moments of death for our sinful self are what constitute purgation for our soul. We do not choose how we are to be purified; our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, decides the death that is suitable for the sinful self at each moment, for the death process is the obverse of the life process. As the Lord informed us, the Father judges no one but has entrusted every judgment to the Son. The Son judges and apportions punishment or payment we are to make for the atonement of the divine justice we have offended. But our suffering is slight compared to the punishment due to our sins against God. Christ’s suffering and death have mitigated the demand for divine justice on us. We suffer little but receive infinite merit due to our faith in Christ. “The souls of the virtuous are in the hands of God, no torment shall ever touch them. In the eyes of the unwise, they did appear to die, their going looked like a disaster, their leaving us, like annihilation; but they are in peace. If they experienced punishment as men see it, their hope was rich with immortality; slight was their affliction, great will their blessings be.” If we abandon ourselves to the loving providence of God here on earth, then we will experience our purgatory here on earth and go straight to heaven when we die. We pray for all the faithful departed who were reluctant to sow their sinful selves with faith in Jesus Christ and are yet to be fully transformed into Christ.

Let us pray: Listen kindly to our prayers, O Lord, and, as our faith in your Son, raised from the dead, is deepened, so may our hope of resurrection for your departed servants also find new strength. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.