Occupy Heaven?! An All Saints' Homily Gone Bad

Father got me all riled up in the first few minutes of Mass this morning. Not good.

Today is All Saints’ Day. Tomorrow is All Souls’ Day. I really don’t see a reason to combine them. But Father does.

“Today, we commemorate all the saints,” he said. “Not just the ones with an ‘s-t’ in front of their names, but also the ones who are in Heaven but just haven’t yet been canonized: these are your parents, your grandparents, your children, your friends…all your loved ones. They are in heaven, too, but maybe just haven’t been recognized as saints yet.”

He continued in this vein in his homily. I began to wonder: what’s the point of celebrating All Souls’ Day. But he answered that question, too.

“Tomorrow is All Souls’ Day, and we commemorate all those souls who are still in purgatory, who just haven’t quite made it to Heaven. Maybe they just need a little bit of a push to get them into Heaven, and that’s why we pray for them.”

All righty, then. Perhaps Father has been reading too much about “Occupy Wall Street”. I can picture the souls of the faithful departed standing outside the gates of Heaven with their signs: “Occupy Heaven! We are the 99% - Redistribute Grace!” (Oh…wait a minute. God already does that.)

Father went on to say that the souls in purgatory were likely just the recently deceased people in our parish, whose names are displayed in front of the lectern to remind us to pray for them all through November. Father mentioned that he was sure that most of them were already in Heaven, because he knew them, and they were all good people, so if they aren’t in Heaven now, they should be by the end of the week (okay, he didn’t say that last part, but he certainly implied it!). “Occupy Heaven” again!

Taking a deep, cleansing breath, I will analyze some of the problems here. In fact, I will just focus on the harm Father has done by making these inaccurate remarks, which my spiritual director tells me are not really heresy, but just “squishy theology” (but I wonder if he was just trying to alleviate my rising blood pressure).

There are three ways Father does damage:

      1) He misleads the Faithful who are listening to his homily.

2) He deprives the Faithful Departed of needed prayers, we may now all assume they are in Heaven, based on Father’s homily, and so we need not worry about (pray for) them.

3) He harms himself by doing the above.

Misleading the Faithful. Father is certainly correct that there many saints in Heaven whose names we do not know. But we cannot assume that our loved ones are in Heaven just because believing so makes us feel better. And we must not assume that getting to Heaven will also be easy for us. The Saints with an “s-t” in front of their names went through some heavy trials. The souls who have reached Heaven have certainly undergone a purging that we on earth cannot even imagine. And just thinking happy thoughts will not change that for them or for us.

Harm to the Faithful Departed. Perhaps some day, these priests who make every funeral Mass into a canonization ceremony will get a clue. If the deceased is already in Heaven, why would we pray for him or her? Isn’t the intention of a funeral Mass to pray for the deceased person – at least in part? And if the person is already in Heaven, why would we continue to pray for the repose of his or her soul? Why should we bother to offer Masses for the deceased? Puh-lease! We should not assume that our deceased loved ones are in Heaven; rather we should continue to pray for them as if they were in purgatory! The graces will not be lost, even if they have gone to Heaven. Our Blessed Mother will apply the merits to some other soul in need.

Harm to the Priest. The priest is responsible for the souls of those in his parish. If he misleads them, he is derelict in his duty. And if he is derelict in his duty, his soul suffers. The parish priest has much more to answer for than do his parishioners. They count on him for guidance, and if he leads them astray…well, what does the Gospel say about that? “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea” (Matthew 18:6). By preaching as he did today, Father was shooting himself in the foot.He probably believes that “All Dogs Go to Heaven”, too.

Oh, by the way, this is not the first time Father has preached this nonsense. And he is probably not the only priest who preached in this manner today.

Sigh.

All Souls' Day: More Than Just a Visit to the Cemetery

Every year on November 2, Catholics in our local parish go to Mass and then visit the local Catholic cemetery. When we first moved here, I went to the Mass, but I never went to the cemetery; for one thing, it was usually a cold, windy day, and I didn’t want to brave the weather. For another thing, I simply did not understand the significance of that visit.

Now, with the experience and wisdom (ha!) gained in my whole almost-ten years of being a Catholic, I do understand – at least a little more – about that visit to the cemetery. I learned several years ago that one can gain a plenary indulgence for visiting a cemetery and offering prayers for the dead on All Souls’ Day (and actually, on any day from November 1 to November 8).  I even learned what a plenary indulgence is.

How did I learn this? Well, it was not from attending Mass on All Souls’ Day and hearing the priest talk about sin, indulgences, prayers for the dead IN PURGATORY, and the like. If anything, all I ever heard about the dead was that they were in heaven praying for us. Purgatory? Well…let’s just think happy thoughts about heaven.

No, I learned about indulgences from my spiritual director, who explained to me what they actually were, and who recommended a book, A Modern Guide to Indulgences, by Dr. Edward Peters. I read the book and found that, like all authentic Catholic teaching, the whole concept of indulgences and purgatory and praying for the dead was integrated, logical, and simply beautiful.

That visit to the cemetery after Mass on All Souls’ Day is not just something we do to “honor the memory” of the dearly departed. We don’t go there just to put flowers on graves and shed a few tears for the family and friends we’ve lost – which does nothing for the dead, but simply gives us opportunity to indulge our own sentimentality.

No, there is much more to it than that.

We go there to pray for their very souls. We go because there is sin in our lives, and there was sin in theirs, and we do not know whether or not these souls have gone to heaven. The Church tells us that almost certainly the deceased are in purgatory, being…well…purged…as the word tells us! They are being prepared to enter the court of the King of the Universe. And we can help them. We must help them, because they can no longer help themselves. That’s why praying for the dead is a spiritual act of mercy.

Even when I have heard people talk of purgatory, it’s been in a sort of off-hand, dismissive way, as if purgatory isn’t all that bad, and hey, you’re on your way to heaven if you at least have made it to purgatory, so no big deal. But then I read another book (I have been told by more than one person that I read too many books): Hungry Souls, by Gerard J. M. Van Den Aardweg. This book makes it very clear that purgatory is real…and painful. Yes, painful. Having every one of your sins laid bare, made excruciatingly present in your mind in the sight of God…well, that’s pain. There’s lots more about the pains of purgatory in Hungry Souls. Read the book.

So…about that visit to the cemetery: through this act, we can gain graces which are passed on to the souls in purgatory, and we also gain graces for ourselves because of the act of mercy in which we participate.

There’s a catch, though. Indulgences don’t come by wishing. There’s work involved. If you read about particular partial or plenary indulgences, you will often see the phrase “under the usual conditions”. What are the “usual conditions”?

For a partial indulgence, one must:

1.      Be baptized

2.      Be in the state of grace

3.      Have the intention to obtain the indulgence

4.      Perform the works or offer prayers correctly

And for a plenary indulgence, one must:

1.      Meet all the requirements of a partial indulgence

2.      Not be excommunicated

3.      Have no affection for sin, not even venial sin

4.      Receive the sacrament of reconciliation and Holy Communion and offer prayers for the pope’s intention within 8 days before or after the indulgenced day

A true appreciation of indulgences brings one to the realization that:

a.       Sin exists (!)

b.      Sins must be forgiven in order to be indulgenced; that means going to confession.

c.       People who die do not automatically go to heaven, no matter how much we love them!

d.      Indulgences can only be granted through the Catholic Church

And finally, it is very important to know that to obtain an indulgence, one must have the intention to obtain it. I’ve noticed that older prayer books often suggest a prayer to this effect: “I wish and purpose to gain today all the indulgences which it is possible for me to gain.” When I pray that prayer, I automatically think about how long it’s been since I went to confession, because that will have some bearing on whether or not I qualify for a plenary indulgence. And both confessing my sins and obtaining an indulgence (whether for myself or for someone else) are good for my soul.

I think that if all the faithful had a greater appreciation of indulgences, there would be more visits to the confessional. I think there would be fewer funeral Masses that sound like beatification ceremonies, and more that sound like the prayer for God’s mercy that they are supposed to be.

My conclusion: The effort to obtain indulgences leads to more prayer, more awareness of sin, prayers for the dead, and the salvation of our souls. Sounds like a good thing.  Too bad we don’t hear more about it from our priests and bishops!

Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine. Et lux perpetua luceat eis.