Dear Sally, I detect a certain diffidence in the tone of your note, as if you disapproved of, or at least felt uncomfortable with, the traditional visit to the cemetery to pray for the dead on today\u2019s feast, the commemoration of all the faithful departed.\u00a0 Is it perhaps because that young man (non-Catholic, I might remind you) you have been \u201cspending time with\u201d lately doesn\u2019t like the sound of the word \u201cpurgatory\u201d?\u00a0 My dear niece, your response to such indirect attacks against your faith should be to counterattack, not to retreat.\u00a0 Nobody likes the word \u201cpurgatory,\u201d just as no one likes the word \u201chell.\u201d\u00a0 But whether we like the words or not, our Lord has told us about them for a reason. Since the earliest days the Church has prayed for those souls who have died in friendship with God, but sill hampered by selfishness, still weighed down by sin and sinful tendencies.\u00a0 The Bible itself praises such prayers (2 Maccabees 12:43-46), which is one of the reasons the reformers excised the Book of Maccabees from their Bibles.\u00a0 Finally, logic is on the side of this doctrine: we all agree that there is no sin in heaven, yet most of us die without having been perfectly cleansed of our sinful tendencies.\u00a0 Therefore, in order to enter heaven we have to be somehow purified.\u00a0 That purification is purgatory (the word means \u201cpurification\u201d).\u00a0 How long and what form this purification takes is open for discussion, but the need for it is an article of faith. So don\u2019t take your walk through the cemetery with trepidation, take it with gladness \u2013 your prayers for those God is preparing for heaven will help speed up the preparation process, which in turn will help them arrive home sooner.\u00a0 And take advantage of the feast to remind yourself that you too are destined for God, and that he will be sure to purge every vestige of selfishness from your soul, either now or later, so that you can embrace him fully, and enjoy him utterly.\u00a0 It is not morose for a Christian to consider death; it is morose not to. Count on my prayers, Uncle Eddy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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