The Roman Catholic Church has special intentions in different months of the year. For instance, March is consecrated to St. Joseph, the husband of Mary; May is consecrated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, and we pray for the missions in October. The Church highlights the importance of praying for our beloved ones who are dead and need our prayers because they may be in purgatory.
The Church teaches that after this life, there are only three “places” where we go: heaven, purgatory, or hell. I write “places” in quotation marks because it is very difficult to explain and describe what heaven, purgatory, and hell really are. EWTN website quotes the explanation that Pope St. John Paul II says about heaven, hell, and purgatory. The website says, “In three controversial Wednesday Audiences, Pope John Paul II pointed out that the essential characteristic of heaven, hell or purgatory is that they are states of being of a spirit (angel/demon) or human soul, rather than places, as commonly perceived and represented in human language. This language of place is, according to the Pope, inadequate to describe the realities involved, since it is tied to the temporal order in which this world and we exist. In this he is applying the philosophical categories used by the Church in her theology and saying what St. Thomas Aquinas said long before him. ‘Incorporeal things are not in place after a manner known and familiar to us, in which way we say that bodies are properly in place; but they are in place after a manner befitting spiritual substances, a manner that cannot be fully manifest to us.’” [St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Supplement, Q69, a1, reply 1]. If you want to read the full text about heaven, purgatory, and hell described on EWTN, you can find it here.
I know that these theological concepts are hard to understand because they surpass our intellect, and it is very difficult to understand these concepts using human language. The most important thing here is to believe that our souls will go to heaven or hell depending on our actions; therefore, we need to fight in our life to reach, as St. Thomas Aquinas says, the supernatural destination that we want: going back to God. We can say in simple words that heaven is simply to stay in the presence of the Lord. We are good people and obey God, so we will go to heaven. On the contrary, if we sin, that means, we disobey God and we will go to hell because we do not want to be in the presence of God. God will not force us to be with Him. It is our choice where we want to be. If we want to be with God, we should increase our relationship with Him through the sacraments, prayers, and works of mercy. On the other hand, if we don’t want to be with God, we just do nothing, and simply focus on ourselves and continue to sin. Therefore, it is our option if we want to go to heaven or hell.
I believe that all of us want to go to heaven. However, nobody is perfect. Only God is. Therefore, we may go to purgatory before going to heaven. In purgatory we clean our souls. For this reason, we pray for the souls in purgatory, not only in November, but the whole year. Our relatives and friends, who died, need our prayers to be purified so they can enter into heaven. But not only our relatives and friends, but also many people around the world need our prayers. Many of them do not have anybody who will pray for them. Hence, the Church has the day of “All the Faithful Departed,” better known as “All Souls’ Day” on November 2nd. When was the last time that you prayed for your beloved ones or for others who you don’t know, because they may be in purgatory?
Let us pray for all souls, not only in November, but every day. People in purgatory will appreciate our prayers. Remember that one day, you and I may be in purgatory as well, and someone will pray for us.
God bless you, and may the Blessed Virgin Mary be with you always!
Fr. Jorge Ramirez
