02/11/2022
Today is the Day for Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed or All Souls Day.
It is the third day of All Hallowtide or All Hallows’ Triduum of All Hallows’ Eve, All Saints Day and All Souls Day. It is a day observed principally in the Roman Catholic Church, Advent Orthodox Catholic Church, Old Catholic Church and some churches of Anglican Communion. It is a carry over from Judaism and their prayers for their deceased loved ones.
In our first reading from the Book of Wisdom 3:1-9, we read “The souls of the just are in the hand of God, and no torment shall touch them.
They seemed, in the view of the foolish, to be dead.” So many fail to understand Eternal Life with God is just that Life eternally not death.
It also gives us insight on the “intermediate state after death” as we read “disciplined a little, they shall be greatly blessed, because God tried them and found them worthy of himself. As gold in the furnace, he proved them.”
Our Psalm is from the 23rd Psalm where we should fear nothing for God is with us and restoreth our soul.
Our second reading from Romans 6:3-9 tells us that “We were indeed buried with him through baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live in newness of life.” Therefore we will raised to new life just as Christ was.
In our Gospel from John 6:37-40, Jesus tells us the will of God the Father that is that we who “believe be in him may have eternal life,
and I shall raise him on the last day.”
Our life does not stop at death but rather as today’s readings repeat over and over death is the door of everlasting life.
The celebration is associated with the doctrine that the souls of the faithful who at death have not been cleansed from the temporal punishment due to venial sins and from their attachment to mortal sins cannot immediately attain the beatific vision in heaven.
It is not a final resting place like heaven or hell but rather an experience of suffering or correction (rather than a specific place) for the souls of the saved or those living in a state of Grace yet still imperfectly purified to be perfected before going to heaven. It is thought that Heaven demands this momentary suffering due to sins whose guilt have not been forgiven. Since it is momentary nobody has or will experience it forever and since it is for the saved and the perfection is on the way to Heaven.
In 1 Corinthians 3:15 Paul states
“ If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved—even though only as one escaping through the flames”
Rev. 21:27 we read “But nothing unclean shall enter heaven.”
Jesus teaches in Matthew 5 the famous “Sermon on the Mount,” where our Lord teaches about heaven (vs. 20), hell (vs. 29-30), and in verse 26 about that intermediate state teaching
“Truly I tell you, you will not get out until you have paid the last penny.”
Christ later adds in verse 48 that we must “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
Those individuals may be helped by prayer and by the sacrifice of the Liturgy. This sanctification is carried out posthumously for the saved in an intermediate state after death.
May the souls of the lovely departure rest in eternal peace
