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Twenty-third
Sunday after Pentecost
Thoughts for the Week - Fr. R. Taouk
17th November 2019
Why Purgatory?
by Archbishop Fulton Sheen
Purgatory enables us to atone for our lack of love for
others. On the other hand, Purgatory is a place, not only
where the love of God tempers the justice of God, but where
the love of man may temper the injustice of man. Most men
and women are quite unconscious of the injustice, the
ingratitude, and the thanklessness of their lives until the
cold hand of death is laid upon one whom they love. It is
then, and only then, that they realise (and oh, with what
regret!) the haunting poverty of their love and kindness.
One of the reasons why the bitterest of tears are shed over
graves is because of words left unsaid and deeds left
undone. "The child never knew how much I loved her." "He
never knew how much he meant to me." "I never knew how dear
he was until he was gone." Such words are the poisoned
arrows that cruel death shoots at our hearts from the door
of every sepulchre.
Oh, then we realise how differently we would have acted if
only the departed one could come back again. Tears are shed
in vain before eyes that cannot see, caresses are offered
without response to arms that cannot embrace, and sighs do
not stir a heart whose ear is deaf. Oh, then the anguish for
not offering the flowers before death had come and for not
sprinkling the incense while the beloved was still alive and
for not speaking the kind words that now must die on the
very air they cleave. Oh, the sorrow at the thought that we
cannot atone for the stinted affection we gave them, for the
light answers we returned to their pleading, and for the
lack of reverence we showed to one who was perhaps the
dearest thing that God had ever given us to know. Alas, too
late! It does little good to water last year's crop, to
snare the bird that has flown, or to gather the rose that
has withered and died.
Purgatory is a place where the love of God tempers the
justice of God, but also where the love of man tempers the
injustice of man, for it enables hearts who are left behind
to break the barriers of time and death, to convert unspoken
words into prayers, unburned incense into sacrifice,
unoffered flowers into alms, and undone acts of kindness
into help for eternal life.
Take away Purgatory, and how bitter would be our grief for
our unkindnesses and how piercing our sorrow for our
forgetfulness. Take away Purgatory, and how meaningless are
our memorial and armistice days, when we venerate the memory
of our dead. Take away Purgatory, and how empty are our
wreaths, our bowed heads, our moments of silence. But, if
there is a Purgatory, then immediately the bowed head gives
way to the bent knee, the moment of silence to a moment of
prayer, and the fading wreath to the abiding offering of the
sacrifice of that great Hero of heroes, Christ. Purgatory,
then, enables us to atone for our ingratitude because,
through our prayers, mortifications, and sacrifices, it
makes it possible to bring joy and consolation to the ones
we love.
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