THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS

This morning Catholics who attended Mass were seen putting names into a basket. They were mostly relatives who had died. It is a traditional practice but is it just kept going to keep Catholics happy? The person has died so should that not be the end of it. I have never attended a funeral in the past 40 years where the families were reminded to pray for the should of their departed ones by any of the clergy. And when did you last hear anyone speak of Purgatory. So is praying for the dead just a superstitious practice in the Catholic Church. Unfortunately there are those who will assure you it is. Scripture and Church teaching tell us different. "It is a Holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead that they may be loosed from their sins" we are told in the book of Machabees. Jesus assured us that a sin against the Holy Spirit would not be forgiven in this world OR THE NEXT. This implies that yes, sins can be forgiven in the next world. Again scripture tells us that nothing impure can enter heaven. So what am I talking about? I am talking about PURGATORY. But as Catholics in many parishes will say "Father does not mention that, you must be wrong?. The Catholic Church has always taught purgatory but I suppose many priests would rather be popular with parishioners who disagree than with the teaching of Christ? If indeed Purgatory exists and our prayers can actually help them then perhaps Father will spend a long time there wishing he had taught its existence after all. This week in keeping with the command of Jesus to be as little children many Catholics will say an Our Father and the Creed for indulgences that will apply to the souls in Purgatory and persuade God to give them the graces necessary to have a pure soul so that they can enter Heaven. Yes, it is a childlike devotion that's its roots in the mercy of God and his love for the Communion of Saints. The 'mature' will call it childish, but then humility is not one of the virtues they admire. Pray for your family. Visit a Church and say the Hail Mary and the Creed. Visit a cemetery and get an Indulgence. May they rest in Peace

 On the Feast of All Saints it should be remembered that many of these saints in Heaven made their way there by way of Purgatory.   To be in the presence of God demands that we are not impure in any way and are in the state of holiness.   There is a great difference between being in a state of goodness and being in a state of holiness.   Holiness comes through grace and it is grace that allows us to live in the presence of Perfection.   We die the kind of person we were in life and sometimes that person is in need of adjusting him or herself  through grace so that when he or she is in the Presence he or she has no imperfections. The gospel tells us that nothing unclean can enter Heaven.   There are people who have lived close to Jesus in their lives and through their experiences and practices we can learn how to get closer to God.   It is not super science.   Yet there were those who came into the Church and mocked the idea of children following saints.   Again as in many cases the .Spirit of Vatican II' bring forward they assumptions are completely false.   When I was eleven years old I read The Story of a Soul by St Therese of Lisieux.    i was stunned and moved by the book as were many of my friends.   Of course, later I learned that she had been rather spoiled as a child and was unpopular in her school but that did not distract from the holiness I found in her writings.   The idea that young people reject saints because they are not like them is fallacious.   All young people have a yearning for God and it is sad that through false teaching many of todays children do not find their model.

 So what have I been talking about here.   I have been talking about the Communion of Saints.  What is that?   It is the Church struggling  on earth, the Church triumphant in Heaven, and yes, THE CHURCH SUFFERING IN PURGATORY.       

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