June 2 - Visiting "Catholic Answers-LIVE"

Hope you will tune in for the first hour of the show on Friday, June 2nd, when host Cy Kellet and I will zero in on Chapter 5 of The Epistle to the Hebrews, "The Communion of Saints." 

Chapters 11 - 12 of Hebrews are the perfect introduction to this topic, from the veneration of the saints right up to the purifying fires of purgatory. Please feel free to call in with your questions: 1-888-318-7884

EVERY Christian Believes in Purgatory

Mother Miriam reminded me of this truth. Every Christian, at least implicitly, believes in purgatory. And I would wager that if more people understood what the Catholic Church  means when it speaks of purgatory, they would find themselves compelled to also acknowledge its existence.

Too many people speak of purgatory as a "place," as they do heaven and hell.  Here is how the Catechism of the Catholic Church defines it:

All who die in God's grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven.

The Church gives the name Purgatory to this final purification of the elect, which is entirely different from the punishment of the damned ... The tradition of the Church, by reference to certain texts of Scripture, speaks of a cleansing fire (1 Cor.3:15, 1 Peter 1:7) ...

This teaching is also based on the practice of prayer for the dead, already mentioned in Sacred Scripture: "Therefore [Judas Maccabeus] made atonement for the dead, that they might be delivered from their sin" (2 Maccabees 12:46). From the beginning the Church has honored the memory of the dead and offered prayers in suffrage for them, above all the Eucharistic sacrifice, so that, thus purified, they may attain the beatific vision of God ... (CCC 1030-32)

Purgatory is a process, a process of cleansing.  I go into this in more depth in The God Who is Love, but let me give a few points:
 

Jesus taught, “from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, fornication, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a man” (Mk.7:21-23).  Now hopefully we Christians are not committing murder but the unkind thoughts or harsh judgments we harbor toward others (the roots of murder) may still be very much with us. These are not acts so great as to completely severe our union with Christ, but they do inhibit the flow of His life within us. When we shed our bodies at death do the impurities, the imperfections in our capacity to love, just disappear? If they are in the heart, and we take that with us, then no. 

Every Christian I know believes that we will be "perfect" in heaven.  No more sinful actions and no more sinful movements of the heart.  And we're right to believe so, Scripture teaches that “nothing unclean shall enter” the Heavenly Jerusalem (Rev.21:27).  So if the vast majority of us have imperfect hearts/souls at the moment of death, and yet we will be perfect when fully united to God in heaven, a cleansing must take place!  It's implicit in the understanding of all Christians; the Catholic Church is simply drawing our attention to it.  

There's a lot more to be said.  If you're curious you might want to check out Chapter 6 of The God Who is Love, "Confession and the Ongoing Nature of Salvation."  Let me give the final word in this post to my Anglican brother, C.S. Lewis:

Our souls demand Purgatory, don’t they? Would it not break [our] heart if God said to us, “It is true, my son, that your breath smells and your rags drip with mud and slime, but we are charitable here and no one will upbraid you with these things, nor draw away from you. Enter into the joy”? Should we not reply, “With submission, sir, and if there is no objection, I’d rather be cleaned first.” “It may hurt, you know” - “Even so, sir.”[1]

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[1] Lewis, C.S. The Joyful Christian (New York: McMillan Publishing Company, 1984), p.222.

Beneath My Mask

Yesterday seemed to have a theme to it - "Who are you under the surface?"  I came across it both in the Liturgy of the Hours and the first reading at Mass.  St. Dorotheus (4th cent) wrote:

The man who thinks that he is quiet and peaceful has within him a passion that he does not see. A brother comes up, utters some unkind word and immediately all the venom and mire that lie hidden within him are spewed out. If he wishes mercy, he must do penance, purify himself and strive to become perfect. He will see that he should have returned thanks to his brother instead of returning the injury, because his brother has proven to be an occasion of profit to him. It will not be long before he will no longer be bothered by these temptations. The more perfect he grows, the less these temptations will affect him.

And then at morning Mass the Book of Tobit ended in this same vein.  The blind Tobit refused to believe that his wife had earned a bonus through her needlework and she tells him off:

So she retorted: “Where are your charitable deeds now?
Where are your virtuous acts?
See! Your true character is finally showing itself!”  (2:14)

Ouch.  I know Tobit wasn't the last husband to be put in his place by an insightful wife.

I totally identified with both readings.  I will seem to be going along well enough, loving my neighbor; and then someone wrongs me or someone I love, and all of that venom comes to the surface.  Those occasions are when Jesus puts me in front of the x-ray machine and shows me how much work remains to be done.  And I think Dorotheus was right on the money when he said that it will take concentrated effort to overcome such deep-rooted sin.  I don't think I can brush it off forever with a comforting, "You'll do better next time."  No, at some point each of us "must do penance, purify himself and strive to become perfect." We either do it now or in purgatory.  In the end we must be perfect as our Father is perfect (Mt. 5:48).

Making "reparation" for our sins?

When a non-Catholic Christian hears that Catholics believe in making acts and offering prayers in reparation for our sins and those of others, it sounds like we don't believe that Jesus' sacrifice was sufficient to atone for all sin.  That would certainly be a problem . . . if that's what we were saying.  But it isn't. 

Jesus received baptism, a baptism of repentance, as our representative.  He redeemed us by giving the Father the loving obedience we had denied him.  In the desert, he withstood temptations to which Adam and Israel had succumbed.  Jesus lived his identity as Son even when it meant being scourged, crowned with thorns, nailed to a tree, and pierced with a spear.  By saying “yes,” and enduring it all in obedience to God’s will, Jesus redeemed the “no” of our sins.  Let me be absolutely clear: the eternal punishment of sin, the separation from God that we call hell, was atoned for – totally, completely, even superabundantly – by the sacrifice of Jesus.  Having said that we Catholics also believe that, joined to Jesus, we are called to offer satisfaction, or reparation, both for our individual sins as well as other members of the Mystical Body.   I’ll do my best to explain why this is.

From time to time you hear of  a “jail house conversion.”  Someone was baptized in infancy but received no real formation in the Faith, and went from one bad decision in life to another.  He finally murdered someone and was jailed.  While in jail he experiences a profound conversion.  He understands that he has done something incredibly evil and vows to live a new life.  The visiting priest hears his confession and gives him absolution.  The convict’s sins are really and truly forgiven.  Jesus’ sacrificial death (pure love) atoned for the act of murder (hate) and reconciles the prisoner’s soul to God, saving him from hell.  Since the prisoner has been forgiven in this way, shouldn’t he be released?  Something tells me I’m not the only one out there saying “no.”

We understand that even though the eternal punishment of his sins have been atoned for by Jesus’ death and that heaven now stands open to the man, there is still an earthly penalty to be paid here in time and space.  It’s called the temporal punishment of sin; and it’s not just the state requiring this of the man, but God. 

 Analogously, this is why the Church insists that even though we’ve been absolved of our sins in the Sacrament of Reconciliation, we need to perform an act of penance.  Penance is a concrete act meant both to repair, or when that is impossible, to make amends for, the harm we have done as well as to get us walking in the right direction again.  (You no doubt remember how Peter, who denied the Lord three times; was asked by the Risen Jesus to reaffirm his love three times.)  

Note, the Church says this to baptized Christians, members of Christ’s Mystical Body.  A state board of corrections will not recognize it, but the Church understands that Baptism wipes away eternal punishment, as well as all temporal punishment earned prior to Baptism.   The baptized soul has been regenerated by grace and made a child of God.  As a “newborn” it is completely free of all punishment!    

But when a Christian sins after Baptism, when she act out of selfishness instead of love, then her loving Father disciplines her. “Every one to whom much is given, of him will much be required” (Luke 12:48).  Don’t’ be discouraged by this. “My child, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, or lose heart when you are punished by him . . . God is treating you as children; for what child is there whom a parent does not discipline?” (Heb.12:5,7).  And you’re not going through this discipline by yourself – you’re filled with the strength of Christ (Phil. 4:13).  Jesus’ love of the Father is so superabundant that it erupts into acts of love in our own lives, acts that make satisfaction for our sins.  “I am the vine, you are the branches.  Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit” (John 15:5).  The branches produce fruit because of the sap they receive from the vine, and we produce acts of love because of the Holy Spirit we receive from Jesus.

We also can’t forget that the Christian life isn’t just “me and Jesus.”  He isn’t at work just in us, but in the whole communion of saints!  In the Body of Christ, “if one member suffers, all suffer together with it” (1 Cor.12:26).  That is why St. Paul went on to say, “I am now rejoicing in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am completing what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church” (Colossians 1:24). United to Jesus and empowered by his grace, Paul made reparation for the sins – the failures to love – of other members of the Body.  

We can consciously choose to enter into this great act of making reparation.  We intentionally ask Jesus to fill us with strength and allow us to express his love for the Father, in reparation both for our failings and those of his whole Body.  We can perform the spiritual and corporal works of mercy.  Perhaps we tighten our belts, literally through fasting or figuratively by almsgiving.[1] Like St. Paul we embrace and offer up the frustrations and sufferings God allows to come our way.  Reparation can be performing a kind act, additional Mass attendance during the week, or asking the Lord to forgive another person’s sins.[2]  Any element of the Divine Mercy is an incredible prayer of reparation!  All of this spring from the same love, the same Holy Spirit, that Jesus poured forth on the Cross. 

Almost everyone has heard the story of Fatima, how the Blessed Mother appeared to three shepherd children in Portugal during World War I.  Europe was experiencing the natural result, or the “temporal punishment,” of abandoning its love of God and neighbor.  Mary came to request a return to the Gospel and reparation for sin through the praying of the Rosary and acts of penance.  What many are unaware of was how the children were prepared for Mary’s visitation, over a year before, through the appearance of an angel and the prayer he taught them.   Prostrating themselves with their foreheads to the ground, he instructed them to pray three times, “My God, I believe, I adore, I hope, and I love you!  I ask pardon of you for those who do not believe, not adore, do not hope, and do not love you.”  

 Pope Pius XI, who became pope shortly after the events at Fatima, made a profound connection between our prayers and acts of reparation and Jesus’ Passion.  In his encyclical On Reparation to the Sacred Heart, he speculated that the angel who “strengthened” Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane did so by crossing time and space to bring him our acts of reparation!

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[1] As water extinguishes a blazing fire, so almsgiving atones for sin” (Sirach 3:30).

[2] ““If you see your brother or sister committing what is not a mortal sin, you will ask, and God will give life to such a one—to those whose sin is not mortal” (1 John 5:16)

The "Fire" of Hell?

To fully appreciate this post, you really need to have read the one just prior (or "below it," in the world of blogs). That said, I'm jumping in.

Several years ago, I heard Dr. Scott Hahn speculate on the fire of hell; and while this isn't what you'd call de fide doctrine, I think many people might benefit from his thoughts. Hahn branched off from what we've already looked at concerning the "fire of purgatory," that it is a transformative encounter with God Himself (Hebrews 12:29, 1 Cor.3:12-15) - the touch of God burning away whatever sin and imperfection keeps us from full participation in His Divine Life. We ourselves are set aflame with this Divine Life; we dwell in the All Consuming Fire, and He dwells in us! Hahn asks if the Fire of Hell could be the same Fire, God - but as He is experienced by a person who refuses Him entry, refuses to be taken up into Divine Life? Keeping God only at the "surface" of their being, they experience Him as "Fire," but refuse the transformative nature of His embrace.

You see, each of us, at every moment, are held in existence by nothing but God's will. That's the corollary truth to having been called into existence from nothing; if we ever ceased to be part of God's will, we would simply unravel. (Wow - that makes sitting on the couch and watching the tube seem pretty spiritual - never mind something as glorious as Bridget cramming that whole White Castle into her mouth). Every being has to be held in existence by Him - there can't be a being who is completely free of His "touch," not even the devil himself. But for one who refuses to be in relationship with Him, this touch would be agonizing. It's like the child, absolutely starving, who stubbornly refuses every bite of food his mother puts before him. He screams and protests, "It's not the food I want," refusing his mother's attempts to explain that it's what his constitution needs. Unwilling to violate her child, she won't shove her fist down his throat and deposit the food in his gullet. Her love for him forces her to let him be, to writhe and protest - becoming ever more angered by her looks of concern.

No one "goes" to hell by accident. It's a choice; a stubborn refusal to accept our place in God's Family. Instead of living within the parameters our Father established for us - established because He created us, and knows what we need far better than we do - we dig in our heels and choose what is incompatible with Divine Life. St. Paul gives a list of such behaviors, 1 Corinthians 6:9. If we choose these over God, and refuse to reorient ourselves, God will not force us to receive Him. He respects our freedom so much that He allows us to keep Him at bay, to create our own experience of hell.

The Fire of "Twilight"

Well, the fourth book in Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight- series actually, Breaking Dawn. That’s right, I too partook of the forbidden fruit (note the cover art). I really enjoyed reading these books, and there’s a lot that could be said from the faith-angle; but tonight I’m sticking with the themes of fire and the resurrection/glorified body.

SPOILERS ABOUND – you have been warned.
In book four, Bella finally became the bloodsucker she’d always hoped to be. These aren’t your run-of-the-mill, B-movie bloodsuckers though. The vampires of Twilight, while being blood-drinkers, are creatures of light. That’s right – in sunlight they become luminous; like a diamond, their skin refracts light. But I digress. The agent of Bella’s transformation was venom from the teeth of her beloved, very-pretty-yet-masculine-vampire Edward.
What I found so fascinating was the way the venom worked: it coursed through Bella’s body, an unseen, transforming fire. She felt as if she had been taken out of time; nothing existed but the fire. Her weakness and imperfections were re-cast as the fire methodically worked its way through her, the flames finally drawing in to focus upon her heart. And then she awoke, as if seeing reality for the first time.

That’s purgatory – an encounter with “God, [Who] is a consuming fire” (Hebrews 12:29). It can take place completely in this life, or it can be finished after our death; it all depends on how much we cooperate in the process. Two blogs back, I referenced 1 Peter 1:7, where we’re given the image of God refining us like gold in fire. He visits us in trials, allowing them to bring imperfections to the surface. And then with God’s grace we deal with them. We allow the Holy Spirit, often imaged by fire, to purify and transform us. God has to “pry us open” and deal with what we keep hidden in the depths of our souls. Jesus was adamant that “from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, fornication, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a man” (Mark 7:21-23). When we shed our bodies at death do the impurities, the imperfections in our capacity to love, just disappear? If they are in the heart, and we take that with us, then no – and thus the need for an encounter with the fire of God’s Love after death. The Apostle Paul spoke of such a purification accompanying our judgment, “the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work which any man has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire (1 Corinthians 3:12-15).

And this brings me to my next point – Bella’s new vampiric life as an image of resurrection and the glorification of the body. I was struck by how similar this “new” Bella was to the risen Jesus. First, there’s the subtlety of the body – to think is to move; there’s no more friction between mind (spirit) and matter. Bella’s senses are sharpened and integrated by a new mental agility – she recognizes beauty even in whirling specks of dust. The speed with which she moves reminds me of Jesus, appearing and disappearing as He chose. And then there’s Bella’s changed appearance – even her own father needed reassurance that it was really her. We see something similar in the accounts of Jesus’ resurrection. He appeared and spoke with people who had known Him in his former life; but they didn’t recognize Him, until He desired them to (Luke 24:16; John 20:14). The prior form is there, but it has been changed. The beauty of the soul, and the beauty of God within the human soul, must show through the body in a new way. The ability to disclose ourselves to another must become dependent on something more than our appearance registering with their ocular nerve and cerebral cortex. (There’s mystery here to be sure – can’t wait to discover the answer!)

The other thing that strikes me is how Bella’s metamorphosis allows her to interact with Edward on a completely different level. It wasn’t until Bella was transformed that she could really engage Edward physically. They had married, and they had consummated that union; but Edward was always having to hold back, unable to unleash the full force of his passion because Bella was simply too fragile to handle it. There’s something to be said there about our relationship with God. In the beginning, He may seem to treat us with kid gloves. But as we progress, as we begin to mature, He begins calling us to embrace more and more of the Cross – for virtue to grow and be solidified through trial. When we read the saints, we catch glimpses of how each step on the road to Heaven brought deeper, more intense experiences of God’s presence. Like Bella, they found themselves bruised at times – but they “hardened” (becoming, in fact, more and more tender) and able to engage God as slightly more mature children. Their vision is sharpened, and they see the world a bit more clearly – sharing the gaze of its Maker. Don’t you get the feeling that when Mother Teresa looked at a street in Calcutta, she saw something there that escapes you and I? Rest assured, now that her transformation is complete, she sees even more.

By our being fused to the humanity of Jesus, we "participate in the divine nature" (2 Peter 1:4) ! Saints have used the image of a piece of iron, plunged into a fire: even though it remains iron, it takes on the "nature," the characteristics and properties of the fire - its heat and color. Jesus has opened up a new way of being human. Listen to how St. Paul describes Jesus' Church, His Spouse; she is "the fullness of Him Who fills the universe" (Ephesians 1:23). The Church, joined eternally to Jesus, is "Christ come to full stature" (Ephesians 4:13). In Jesus, we will be engulfed in God's Fiery Love, in God Himself! "Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Jesus appears, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is" (1 John 3:2).

Now, still to consider: Why does our agnostic vampire, Edward, have such strong convictions about right and wrong, virtue and vice?

NOTE: A slightly adapted form of this post appeared on Catholic Exchange, Dec.26th, 2009.

The Tenacious D

No, not the homies pictured at right. I'm talking about Death, the ultimate tenacious "D." You see, I realize that I'm a bit strange because I don't experience much sadness when someone passes. Yes, I KNOW - I sound horrible, even to myself. I do experience very strong emotions...but rarely in response to death. I was reflecting upon my strangeness over the weekend, and came up with the following explanation, a mini-essay if you will:

"My grieving usually involves, not death, but the tough things that precede death - pain and struggle with illness, catastrophes of life, relationship difficulties, living with the consequences of poor choices, people's struggles with addictions, etc. Someone's death, their absence from my daily life, doesn't affect me in the same way. And I guess that is for a number of reasons:

"I usually still speak to these people (although no, I don't hear them answering back!) I ask them to pray for me, and I pray for them - that their experience of purgatory is brief, or not necessary at all. I realize that, in God, they can understand my love for them and the motivations for my actions (good and bad) much better than I can myself. If there was anything I didn't feel able to say to them in life, for whatever reason, those restrictions aren't there anymore. They're free of the pains and struggles I mentioned in the paragraph above. There is also the recognition that, for all of the theological study I've done, these people have leaped beyond me in the twinkling of an eye. I also hope to be able to spend a literal eternity with them. I guess for all of these reasons, death doesn't sadden me all that much. If I feared that a person I loved was totally resisting God's attempts to work in his/her life though, then that passing would make me sad; there is something far worse than earthly death out there.

"My discomfort with my own death centers around the unknown: will there be a great deal of pain beforehand? When my time comes, will I be living as God's child; or will I have chosen something incompatible with Him? (I'm very aware of my ability to sin, how feeble I really am when it comes to virtue; so I have to stay on my guard.)"

Note: This is my second post with a photo of Jack Black. Forget my views on death; what does that say about me?

Hard to Imagine the Afterlife?

I know. St. Paul had the same problem though, “no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived, what God has prepared for those who love Him” (1 Corinthians 2:10). Right now our knowledge of God is conceptual, we use analogies from this created world to speak of the Totally Other: “now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face…[we] shall understand fully, even as we have been fully understood” (1 Cor. 13:12). Don’t take this “darkness of faith” too hard though –we’ve all been through it before; and it turned out great.

None of us remember our first 40-or-so weeks, but they were lived in complete darkness. Our entire world was that wet, increasingly-cramped space inside our mom's womb. And we couldn’t even begin to imagine that there was this entire world, entire planet, awaiting us outside. We lived beneath our mother’s heart, exposed to its constant rhythm, and yet we had never seen her face! We had grown to recognize her voice, but we hadn’t developed to the point of understanding any of her words. And birth – talk about TRAUMA! All of that amniotic fluid we’ve been swimming in, gone in an instant; our heads compacted and squeezed through the birth canal; the light; the cold; that humiliating slap on the ass! But we finally entered the real world, finally got that chance to see mom face-to-face, to eat through our mouths instead of our belly buttons, and a million other experiences that we’re impossible to conceive of from the darkness of the womb.

Turns out that was just the warm-up; we’re still in utero, and the REAL world awaiting us "outside" remains inconceivable. We’re going to get the chance to enter it though; and just like before, we don’t have a clue when. This time around though, we get to participate in our own growth process. Each "yes" to God allows our spiritual "organs" to develop a bit more. If we haven't come to full term when the moment of birth arrives though, God has a top-notch NICU experience planned for us (the Church calls it purgatory; 1 Cor.3:10-15). Listen to the Apostle John:

"Beloved we are God's children now; it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when [Jesus] appears we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. And everyone who thus hopes in Him purifies himself as He is pure." (1 John 3:1-3)

St. Francis of Assisi was right on, "It is in dying that we are born to eternal life."