Homily for November 2, 2025
All Souls Day
On Purgatory
One day,
St. Padre Pio was passing a quiet snowy evening by the fireplace, when a poor
man came in and sat beside him. He was startled, as he thought all the doors
were locked. “Who are you, and what do you need?” the saint asked.
The man
responded, “My name is Pietro DiMauro, and I died in this place fifteen years
ago. Before it was a monastery, it was a poorhouse, and I fell asleep with a
cigar in my mouth and I died in the fire. I am in Purgatory and have come to
ask for help.”
If you
know anything about Padre Pio, the mystical was always a part of his life, so
he was unfazed at seeing this soul from Purgatory. The saint replied, “I will
offer Mass for you tomorrow.” At this, Padre Pio showed the man to the door –
the saint noticed that he had to unlock the door, since it was locked. The man
stepped out into the snow, and vanished – no footprints, nothing.
Padre
Pio, though, wondered if this was all a dream, so he and one of his fellow
Franciscans went to the Town Hall a few days later, and looked at the vital
statistics. Lo and behold, a man named Pietro DiMauro really did die from a
fire in that exact location! It was no dream – it was a true visitation from
Purgatory!
This
Feast of All Souls is a good time to reflect upon Purgatory. It is really a
very consoling teaching of our Catholic Faith, one with roots in Scripture and
has been taught since the very beginnings of the Church.
God
gives us Purgatory out of His great love for us. If you were to walk outside on
a day where fresh snow is on the ground and the sun is shining, you are
completely blinded – not because there is no light, but because there’s
too much light and your eyes haven’t adjusted. Likewise, if we were to enter
into the presence of Almighty God but our spiritual eyes have not yet adjusted
to seeing His holiness, we would be struck blind. So Purgatory allows our eyes
to adjust to seeing the brightness of God. Or, another example – imagine that
you’ve been mowing the lawn with a push-mower – getting sweaty, dirty, smelling
like grass and grease. And someone comes up and tells you that the Pope wants
to have lunch with you in an hour. Surely we would be embarrassed to show up in
our ripped tee-shirt and sweat stains! We would want to take a shower, put on
good clothes. Likewise, we would be humiliated to be in the presence of the
all-holy God if we had the stains of lust, greed, pride, unforgiveness on our
soul. So He allows us a place of cleansing before we enter His presence.
And that
is precisely what Purgatory is: cleansing. Purgatory isn’t a state in-between
Heaven and Hell; rather, it’s part of the journey to Heaven. You can’t fail
Purgatory – if you’re there, you’re saved! But most of us go there, because if
we haven’t achieved perfect union with God here, then we will have to be
trained in that union with God in the afterlife.
But does
the Bible teach about Purgatory? Yes! In 2 Maccabees, in the Old Testament. The
Jews were battling the Greeks to take back the Holy Land, and they win a major
battle, leading to a cleansing of the Temple (which is the root of the holiday
of Hannukah). But a few Jewish men died in the battle. So as they were
preparing the bodies of the dead to bury them, they found that all the men who
had died were wearing, under their cloaks, a magic good-luck charm dedicated to
a pagan idol. But rather than despair, the leader of the Jews took up a
collection to purchase animals to sacrifice to God as a way of atoning for
their sin. In fact, it says in 2 Maccabees, “It is a holy and wholesome thought
to pray for the dead.” Well, the souls in Heaven don’t need prayers, and the
souls in Hell can’t use them…voilà, Purgatory. It’s true that the word
Purgatory isn’t in the Bible, but the concept is – you can also find it
in 1 Corinthians.
So what
happens in Purgatory? It is suffering, but with hope. There are two kinds of
suffering: first, when all of us die, we will see Jesus face-to-face, and we
will realize that He is the object of all our desire, our greatest
happiness. And then, for those destined for Purgatory, He will be taken away –
so that they may desire Him more intensely! So the first suffering is not
having Jesus, whom you know is your own happiness. Secondly, there is the
re-fashioning of Christ in us. Imagine for a moment that your soul has a bronze
statue of Jesus in it, shining and brilliant. But over the years, the statue
gets dinged, dented, loses its shine, becomes moldy. It’s still the image of
Jesus, but it’s obscured. So what would we have to do to make it new again? We
have to scrub it, buff it, hammer it out, maybe heat it up and re-cast it.
That’s painful work – but necessary work. Purgatory refashions that image of
Christ in us by hammering out, scrubbing out those dings and bumps and
scratches that obscure Him in us.
Some of
the saints and mystics talk about different levels of Purgatory. One good
explanation, from a nun who had visions of the souls in Purgatory in the late
1800s, mentions four levels. The lowest level of Purgatory is for those souls
who had mortal sin on their soul, but were saved at the last minute through the
prayers of a relative or through an act of repentance right before they die.
This requires a great deal of suffering, so much so that souls have said it is
almost like the suffering of Hell, but with one key difference – they have
hope, so they praise God despite their suffering. One level higher is for those
souls who have been lukewarm in their Faith. Maybe they didn’t commit huge
sins, but certainly didn’t care about holiness and neglected to develop even a basic
prayer life. Higher than this is those souls who did love God and seek Him, but
ignored His inspirations for greater holiness. The mystic writing this said
that many, many priests and nuns are at this level, as they received great
graces from God but ignored some of those graces. Finally, the highest level of
Purgatory is for those who love God, avoided sin, and made some progress in the
spiritual life, but still loved creatures more than the Creator and were not yet
saints.
Can we
help the souls in Purgatory? Absolutely! Pray and have Masses offered for them
– you may hear at every Mass, “This Mass is offered for so-and-so” – that is a
beautiful and effective way to help your loved ones! There was in Germany in the
1300s two priests who were close friends, one of whom was Bl. Henry Suso. Henry
and his friend had made a promise that whoever died first, the other one would
offer Mass twice per week for the friend’s soul in Purgatory. Many years
passed, and Fr. Henry’s friend died, but Henry had forgotten his promise. He
prayed for his friend, but didn’t offer any Masses. One day in prayer, his
friend appeared to him and reminded him of his promise – but Fr. Henry
objected, saying, “I prayed for you, and even offered sacrifices for you,
wasn’t that enough?” The soul of his friend replied, “I need the Blood of Jesus
to release me from Purgatory, nothing else is strong enough.” So Fr. Henry
began to pray the Mass for his friend’s soul, and in a short while he saw him
again, this time radiant and joyful, having been admitted to the company of the
saints in Heaven.
But what
about us? Is there anything we can do to avoid Purgatory? Yes – three
things. First, pursue holiness. Not mediocrity, not being lukewarm, not making
a thousand excuses about how busy we are. No – develop a real prayer life, come
to the Sacraments regularly, examine yourself and try to overcome your faults
and grow in virtue. Second, respond to all the graces and inspirations God is
giving you. How often do we think, “Oh, I should pray…oh, I should do this act
of charity for someone else…” but we put it off, we make excuses, we find the
NFL and Instagram far more interesting. But these inspirations, these “thoughts
from Heaven”, are God’s way of showing us where He is and where we will find
Him…don’t miss them! Finally, suffer well. I have a student at Cardinal Kung
who loves to pray the Rosary but hates to go to math class. Every time I see
him in the hallway before math class, he moans as if he was going to be
tortured – “Oh, I can’t stand my teacher! This is dreadful! I hate this class!”
Finally one day I said to him, “Offering this class up to God as a sacrifice,
joyfully, will make you holier than a thousand Rosaries.” It didn’t stop him
from complaining! But it’s true – offering those aches and pains, daily
inconveniences, and especially the huge crosses to God, joyfully and without
complaint, “make up for” Purgatory time while here on earth.
My
friends, on this All Souls Day, it’s always a fruitful endeavor to reflect upon
this often-neglected teaching of the Church – that of Purgatory. Perhaps in a
special way we can pray at this Mass for all of our relatives and friends who
have died, and ask that God hasten them through any cleansing they may be enduring,
that they may go to join the saints in Heaven!
