Padre’s Points to Ponder – 10/31/25
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
At the time of this writing, the island nation of Jamaica is preparing for a direct hit of a massive and powerful hurricane. By the time you read this, the storm will likely be dissipating out in the Atlantic somewhere, having wrought immense destruction to Jamaica and eastern Cuba. My heart is with all the people there, especially the extremely vulnerable children of the Mustard Seed Communities. Please join me in praying for all of them, and finding ways to support them following this devastation.
November is upon us, and that means Hallowtide, or the time of celebrating and remembering all the holy ones, which are the Saints in Heaven, and all the holy souls in purgatory.
When I was in college on a retreat with the campus Catholic Center at the start of November, the religious sister serving as spiritual director for us told us in no uncertain terms, and with a certain amount a glibness, that “The Church stopped believing in purgatory a long time ago.”
She is not alone in that view, but she is unequivocally incorrect. While she may have stopped believing in purgatory a long time ago, the Church has not.
Purgatory, as wonderfully described by the late Pope Benedict XVI, is the process by which the soul is purified for entrance into Heaven, which the Bible tells us is reserved for the perfect (see Revelation 21:27). He said “If purgatory didn’t exist, we would have to invent it” because so few souls die in perfect grace, free from any and all attachments to sin. The Holy Father described the “pain” of purgatory as an inward healing that comes from the perfect loving gaze of Jesus Christ that purges away all that is unholy with us, that fills every lack of charity.
The reality is that few people die loving God with “all their heart, all their mind, and all their soul, and their neighbor as themselves.” Some people die holding on to their grave sins, rejecting God’s mercy in quite a final way. But the vast majority of us die somewhere in the middle.
The Catechism states in paragraph 1030:
“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.”
Every soul in purgatory will be in Heaven, and we can assist them. Our loving prayers, invoking God’s great mercy upon them, in a way, speeds them along through this process. So this Sunday, let’s not assume that we know better than God the status of someone’s soul, but lovingly and faithfully call upon our Heavenly Father to welcome them into the Kingdom of Heaven, made pure and perfected in the Blood of the Lamb!
Praised be Jesus Christ, now and forever!
All you holy saints of God, pray for us!
Peace in Christ,
Fr. Michael Silloway
Pastor