Saint Frances Cabrini Parish

Father Kleppner - August 3, 2008

Very often, as Catholics, we get questions about our teaching on Purgatory. The following question and answer to Msgr. M. Francis Mannion in last week’s Our Sunday Visitor is a very good explanation and understanding.
Purified by purgatory
Though most die far from perfection, we can know
God still works in our imperfect souls.
Question: I notice that homilies and other comments made by priests at funerals frequently refer to the soul of the deceased person already being in heaven.
I have no doubt that such is possible. However, I thought the Church’s position is that the living should pray with fervent “hope” that God has already, or will eventually, welcome the soul into heaven. I would appreciate your comments.
— Bernie MacDonald Kanata, Ontario

Answer: I, too, have been to funerals where the kind of sentiments you have heard were expressed – of course these were mostly priests’ funerals, where the sentiments were naturally justified (just joking!).
You are correct in thinking that funeral homilies that instantly canonize the deceased are out of line.
No homilist has any way of knowing whether the one who has died is in heaven or not. To say that someone is in heaven is to declare that he or she has already been fully conformed to Christ and that everything about them is utterly Christ-like. Very few people die in that condition. Most people die far from the perfection of Christ and the saints and have a long way to go before the fullness of salvation is realized in them.
This is where purgatory comes in. Purgatory is the process whereby we move after death from human imperfection to the glory of the saint. Purgatory is the road from the grave to heavenly perfection. In human terms, we might say that this takes time and energy on the part of God, who reaches out to us in death and calls us to himself and shapes us into the perfection for which we were created.
Many Catholics have been raised with a rather negative, even frightening, notion of purgatory as a place of torment and suffering. I myself was taught that the only difference between hell and purgatory is that you can get out of the latter. But purgatory, in the best tradition, is a place of joy and beauty, a place wherein the gifts and the Holy Spirit are imparted to the deceased.
Homilists would do well to listen to the prayers of the funeral Mass. Never once do they speak of the deceased actually being in heaven. As you observe, the liturgy of the Church constantly asks that the deceased be received into the glory of heaven. There is constant intercession that the sins of the one who has died will be forgiven and that he or she will be saved from human imperfection.
If we examine the body of Scripture readings that the Church has set aside for funerals, we will see that they make regular reference to divine judgment and to the danger of losing one’s soul.
I must admit that, like most people, I prefer the rosier readings, which emphasize the positive, but we would all do well to study all the prescribed readings at some time in our life and use them for an examination of conscience.
No one wants to hear the Gospel about the sheep and the goats at a funeral, but we ought to be aware of it on a regular basis as a guide for our lives, and also as a way of being reminded that our salvation depends – to the highest extent – on the way we treat our poor brothers and sisters.
Some might regard my way of thinking here as on the darker side. But I actually find the church’s traditional doctrine and the tone of the funeral liturgy very reassuring, because it sets before us the truth that we don’t have to die in perfection to be saved.
God and the Church are more realistic than that. The imperfection in which most of us die precludes instant heaven, but we are assured, nevertheless, that God can still work on our imperfect souls.

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