November and Prayer for the Poor Souls

THIRTY-FIRST SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

3 November 2019, Bruder Klaus

Wis 11:22—12:2

2 Thes 1:11—2:2

Lk 19:1-10

Praised be Jesus Christ!

        We have just celebrated All Souls Day yesterday and are at the beginning of this month of November in which traditionally we spend extra time, both at home and in church and when possible in a cemetery near us, to pray for those who have gone before us in death. We pray that the Lord show them mercy and purify them of their faults and failings, that He free them of the punishment due for the sins, which they committed in this life. We make this effort for them and for us, that they might know the fullness of joy with Christ in Heaven and that our entrance into God’s Kingdom be not delayed or hampered when our time comes. With that in mind, I think it important to remind ourselves of what the Church teaches concerning death and what comes thereafter. We must be mindful of what we believe as Catholics about our eternal reward or punishment. We need to be mindful of what awaits us at our death, in what the Catechism refers to as the particular judgment.

        If you have a missal of your own or a Magnificat, take time this Sunday to reread that first reading from the Book of Wisdom. It is really very upbeat and should fill us with hope and confidence concerning the love of God for each and every one of us His children.

        “But you spare all things, because they are yours, O Lord and lover of souls, for your imperishable spirit is in all things! Therefore you rebuke offenders little by little, warn them and remind them of the sins they are committing, that they may abandon their wickedness and believe in you, O Lord!”

        That is our faith in God Who loves us despite our sins and failings and would lead us home forever to Himself.

        Even Luke’s Gospel account of the repentance of the tax collector Zacchaeus should fill us with hope of God’s forgiveness for our many and maybe, yes, grave sins.

        “And Jesus said to him (to Zacchaeus, the man guilty of extorting money from others and abusing his trust as a tax collector), “Today salvation has come to this house because this man too is a descendant of Abraham. For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save what was lost.”

        What makes that miserable little man from the Gospel, Zacchaeus the tax collector, great? How does he find himself saved before God in Jesus Christ? By openly confessing his sins and making restitution. Zacchaeus resolves to do good with the wealth he has accumulated in office while stealing from others. He promises to give half of all he has to the poor and intends to make amends by paying back four times what he has stolen. 

        “Therefore you rebuke offenders little by little, warn them and remind them of the sins they are committing, that they may abandon their wickedness and believe in you, O Lord!”

        In a sense, Jesus did not have to rebuke Zacchaeus. As a son of Abraham, the law of God already condemned him for abuse of office. Jesus did no more than to call him down from the tree and tell Zacchaeus he wanted to spend time at his house that day. I cannot imagine a better illustration of what our passage from the Book of Wisdom is talking about. Jesus-God gave Zacchaeus that little nudge he needed to believe, to abandon his wickedness and to seek reconciliation. That is the way God is with us: no thunderbolts or earthquakes, but a radically respectful little by little to call us to order.

        We need to do the same as Zacchaeus in our lives. We need to repent for our own sake. We, like Christ, need to do as much for others by gently calling them to repentance. Moreover, as the Church teaches, we need to pray and sacrifice for those who can no longer help themselves, who came up somehow short of perfection, for those who have died and gone before us. The month of November is about praying for all of those, who are now part of the Church suffering in Purgatory. We need to intercede on their behalf and to help them make up for what they failed to repair before their passing from this life.

        God does not whitewash, He does not throw a blanket over our imperfection. He calls us to account and calls others to account for us; He purifies us so that in freedom and light we might stand before Him in all His Glory, that on the last day we might see Him face to face and not falter.

Most of us understand that when we have failed others or harmed them, we need to make things good again. On the one hand, I owe this much to the ones whom I have harmed. On the other hand, even for me, just getting off the hook is not enough. I am scarred by my sins, be they great or small. Living in a state of something less than heroic love and radical respect for God and neighbor has consequences that cry out for atonement. This is the sense of the penance the priest gives us in Confession. The priest grants us absolution, he forgives our sins, but there is still temporal punishment due for our sins. My greater or lesser wickedness needs the equivalent of a gesture or act like that undertaken by Zacchaeus to make things truly better again.

Reparation in great part is what penance is all about. This explains the Church’s penitential seasons, especially the season of Lent, marked as it is and should be by fasting and abstinence. This explains the traditional practice of not eating meat on Fridays. This is what almsgiving is all about. This is what praying for the poor souls in Purgatory, especially in the month of November is all about, as well.

Be as generous in your prayers and sacrifices for those who have died as you would have God merciful with you and as you would hope that at your death others would pray and sacrifice, do penance on your behalf. That all might quickly come into the Lord’s Kingdom, O Lord we pray!

“Therefore you rebuke offenders little by little, warn them and remind them of the sins they are committing, that they may abandon their wickedness and believe in you, O Lord!”

 Praised be Jesus Christ!

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