Pinned Post
Translation of the Epistle for the 21st Sunday After Pentecost (Eph 6:10-17)
Brethren: Be strengthened in the Lord and in the might of His power. Put on the armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the Principalities and the Powers, against the world rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness on high. Therefore, take up the armor of God, that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and stand in all things perfect. Stand, therefore, having girded your loins with truth, and having put on the breast-plate of justice, and having your feet shod with the readiness of the Gospel of peace, in all things taking up the shield of faith, with which you may be able to quench all the fiery darts of the most wicked one. And take unto you the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit, that is, the word of God.
Continuation of the Holy Gospel According to St. Matthew (8:23-35)
At that time, Jesus spoke to His disciples this parable: The kingdom of heaven is likened to a king who desired to settle accounts with his servants. And when he had begun the settlement, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents. And as he had no means of paying, his master ordered him to be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made. But the servant fell down and besought him, saying, ‘Have patience with me and I will pay you all!’ And moved with compassion, the master of that servant released him, and forgave him the debt. But as that servant went out, he met one of his fellow-servants who owed him a hundred denarii and he laid hold of him, and throttled him, saying, ‘Pay what you owe.’ His fellow-servant therefore fell down and began to entreat him, saying, ‘Have patience with me and I will pay you all.’ But he would not; but went away and cast him into prison until he should pay what was due. His fellow-servants therefore, seeing what had happened, were very much saddened, and they went and informed their master of what had taken place. Then his master called him, and said to him, ‘Wicked servant! I forgave you all the debt, because you entreated me. Should not you also have had pity on your fellow-servant, even as I had pity on you?’ And his master, being angry, handed him over to the torturers until he should pay all that was due to him. So also My heavenly Father will do to you, if you do not each forgive your brothers from your hearts.
The Saving Words of the Gospel
Should not you also have had pity on your fellow-servant, even as I had pity on you?
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, the Holy Ghost. Amen.
Transcription of Sermon
Since it’s Sunday, the Church observes today as the 21st Sunday After Pentecost, and nonetheless, the traditional date for All Souls is November 2nd.
Today, and today’s Gospel serves as one of the foundational texts for the Church’s teaching on Purgatory. Protestants and Orthodox reject the teaching of the Church on Purgatory, claiming it’s not in the Bible; nor is the Trinity, the hypostatic union, or the incarnation, but I don’t think they doubt those truths. The concepts of all of those things certainly are, and in 1 Corinthians 3:11-15, Paul says Everyone will be tested by fire, suffering loss, whether gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay, or straw. So, everything about us will be submitted to fire, which will either burn it up, at loss, or purify. In Matthew 12:32, Our Lord says, some people can be forgiven in the age to come. In 2 Maccabees, it says, It is a good and righteous thing to pray for the dead that they be delivered from their sins. And in Apocalypse 21:12, nothing impure can enter heaven.
So, everyone understands the necessity of restitution. Everybody understands justice that is not in contradiction to mercy. Everybody would say it’s rather incongruous that somebody such as Mother Teresa or Padre Pio would simply die and have the same everlasting life as a libertine who converts in the last moment. A Byzantine Catholic once told me, Well, we Byzantine Catholics don’t believe in Purgatory. I asked, Why do you pray 40 days after the death of a loved one? If they’re in hell, those prayers are futile. If they’re in heaven, those prayers are futile.
What I’ll be using as sources for this sermon are writings for St. Catherine of Genoa, St. Francis of Rome, St. Veronica Giuliani, and Sr. Maria of the Cross, her Manuscript on Purgatory. I recommend all of those, especially the Manuscript on Purgatory and the Treatise on Purgatory by St. Catherine of Genoa. That’s good spiritual reading for this month. Also, the Councils of Florence and Trent elaborate on this defined teaching.
Just as we have three stages of the interior life, purgative, illuminative, and the unitive stages of the interior life, there are also three degrees of Purgatory. The lowest is called the Great Purgatory, and this is like Hell with hope. In other words, one there experiences the fires of Hell, but knows that one is saved, not knowing how long one will be there, though. These souls do not enjoy any visions of Our Lady, St. Michael, their Guardian Angels, or any of the Saints that come to visit souls in the Second Purgatory, or in what’s called the Threshold [the third level]. Who ends up in the Great Purgatory? Well, those people who have committed many mortal sins that need to be expiated, those who have never prayed for the souls in Purgatory, religious and priests who are unfaithful in their duties, great sinners who converted at the last moment. Whoever it lands there is according to perfect justice. It’s also mercy. It would be hell for us to go to Heaven with any impurity on our soul that needs to be expiated and reordered.
In the Second Purgatory, the flames of punishment and expiation are mitigated, and one also experiences the pain of loss; [the] desire for the Blessed Trinity that one cannot yet see. Here in the Second Purgatory, those souls can be visited by Our Lady, and they say whenever she appears, all pain ceases. They can also be visited by their Guardian Angels, St. Michael, other Saints.
The Threshold, which is the last purification before entry into the Beatific Vision, there are no flames. There’s the suffering of longing for Our Lord. They’re deprived of the Beatific Vision, and this is the cause of their sorrow. They long for Him so much, as we should.
Time is an interesting thing. St. Augustine says, If you don’t ask me what time is, I can tell you what time is. If you ask me what time is, I have a hard time defining it. But time is a measurement. It’s a movement of action. So, it’s even a metaphysical movement. One thought to the next. That requires time. These mystical writers say that the average length of time somebody spends in Purgatory is 30 to 40 years, but I imagine time is a bit relative when you’re on fire.
Before one can end up in Purgatory, the soul has to be divorced from the body. And what happens then? Once the soul leaves the body, it’s immersed in the Blessed Trinity without seeing Him. And the incongruity between the love and the goodness of God in whom one is immersed and the stains of forgiven sins that haven’t been expiated is so weighty that the soul escapes the divine embrace and goes directly to the spot in Purgatory it should go to and only then does the soul understand that God is love and that every sin is an assault on love every sin is an act of thievery; theft of glory that God is owed. Every time we serve ourselves, we steal something from God that all has to be made aright to the last penny.
Imagine the stupid things we did, maybe as students in college or something like that, maybe we broke something or stole something. Everything has to be repaired. Better to do it in this life. Better take an inventory of everything that I’ve ever taken from somebody and not repaid, broken, borrowed, and never given back. Everything is going to be submitted to this fire of divine love. And how am I going to come out? Once the soul is infused with this perfect knowledge of every sin and all of their effects and lands in Purgatory, the remembrance of those sins is wiped away from the memory. And the mind is filled with longing for Our Lord. Notice there’s no selfishness anymore in purgatory. There’s no remembrance of self, because the heart, the mind, everything about us will be hyper-focused on that which we long for and do not yet possess.
How can we help these souls? Well, there are particular days where souls are delivered. Tomorrow, the Commemoration of All Souls is the day when we can help the most of the souls in Purgatory. Why? Because so many souls in the Great Purgatory cannot benefit from Masses and prayers out of justice until certain expiation has already been paid. Except tomorrow, except on All Souls. On All Souls, even the souls in the great Purgatory can benefit from Masses and prayers, and sacrifices offered up for them only on November 2nd. Other days when Our Lady comes to release many souls are Christmas Night, and the Assumption, Holy Saturday.
What can we do? How can we pay a debt for them? We can begin, above all, with renewing our interior life and understanding of what it is that Our Lord is asking of us, because our loving obedience to His will merits much more than any prayer we can offer for the souls in Purgatory, our configuration with the will of God, our charitable exercise, the virtue of charity oriented towards others in the order of forgiveness, in the order of seeking the good of others, all of these things, can bring all sorts of graces, relief and even release from souls in Purgatory. Accepting the crosses, and the difficulties, and irritations that divine providence has set aside for me. Those are not a curse. They’re a currency that are to be used for the good of others.
There are also particular devotions. We ought to have masses offered for the Souls in Purgatory. We can do the Via Crucis as a very powerful devotion for the Souls in Purgatory, the Litany of the Souls in Purgatory, the Chaplet of the Souls in Purgatory, visit cemeteries and pray there, rosaries, Adoration, fasting, corporal penances, spontaneous prayers, the Rosary of St. Michael, all of these things, but they have to be done with proper intention and proper disposition. In other words, we have to be in a state of grace. We have to offer them up in charity for that intention and be recollected. Distracted prayers mean very little to Our Lord.
How can we avoid purgatory? Well, notice that the common denominator in all three stages is longing for God. The more we long for Him, the more we desire for Him, the more He orders our hearts so that those things that we used to think were so important suddenly are not that important. Frequent meditation on the Passion, and many hours of Adoration, fasting, penances, all of these things are going to be helpful for us to reconfigure, reorder the disorder that we wrought in our own souls through our bad choices.
Imagine if there were a beautiful table, and then you hammer a nail into that table and disfigure it. That’s the sin. Confession pulls the nail out, but the table is still damaged. That’s what happens. That’s the result of forgiven sin. When sin is forgiven, there’s still a damage, a disorder that has to be restored. And every, every single sin, as long as it is not expiated in this life, will have to be expiated in the next.
We have this month ahead of us. We ought not end it today without coming up with a campaign, a plan of attack. What am I going to do for the holy souls, especially tomorrow? If you can take off the day of work and just spend the day praying for them, that would be a huge blessing. By the end of the month, if you, every day, pray and do sacrifice for the souls in Purgatory, by month’s end, you will have delivered so many souls from Purgatory, you will have an army, not only of friends who await you in Heaven, but intercessors for you right now. They’ll be praying for your protection. They’ll be praying for illumination so that you can understand God’s will for you. You will have so many saints on your side, and they will be so grateful. This is what families do for each other.
It’s in our hands. How many souls will you free from Purgatory? That’s up to you. To have saved one more or one fewer. It’s not indifferent. How many will you save from Purgatory? That’s something you will decide this month.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, the Holy Ghost. Amen.
~Fr. Ermatinger