Come to Me, All You Who Labor

Homily for the Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed

We all know that one day each of us is going to die. This mortal coil, as William Shakespeare called it, will one day fail. At the same time, the church teaches us that in our baptism we have already died and risen with Christ. Our faith tells us that when our bodies die, we will continue to live forever. Today we remember all of the holy souls who have gone before us, marked with the sign of faith. Having concluded our festival in honor of those who now live with God in heaven, we turn our attention to those who died still marked by sin. Traditionally, we refer to these souls as living in purgatory, awaiting the day when they will see God face to face.

Purgatory or purgation is a process by which we suffer the penalty for sin. When a child realizes that his or her parents are disappointed by their behavior, they are sometimes filled with a sense of regret at having caused pain to those who love them. At the moment of our death, we will stand before our Heavenly Father and will realize the greatness of God’s love for us. The sense of regret that we will feel in the face of this love is the purgation of our sins. God’s love for us has been so immense that our human faculties cannot fathom the depth, the height, or the breadth of that love. When that realization becomes evident, we will truly realize how little we have loved God in return.

The Book of Wisdom describes purgation as a process by which our souls are proved by God as gold is proved in a furnace. We often hear purgatory described with similar imagery. Consequently, a very natural human fear of death grows within each of us.

There is a story about two priests who were held as prisoners under a Communist regime in Eastern Europe. I have told you this story before, but I repeat it today because it illustrates why we really have nothing to fear. These two priests suffered greatly at the hands of their prison guards. However, the most terrifying torture was that every once in a while the prison guards would put a plate of food before them and say: "This is your last meal.  Tomorrow you DIE!"  The following morning, they were led before a firing squad, blindfolded, and then trembled as they heard the command: "Ready, aim, fire!"  How stunned they were to discover they were still alive.  The soldiers had been ordered to shoot above the heads of the two priests.  Their tormentors repeated this charade 15 times over a period of 10 months. However, each time it happened, the priests feared death a little less until they did not fear death at all.

Indeed, in baptism we have already died in Christ. All that is left for us is the rising to new life.