theROCK

Pray for the Dead

Praying for the dead has long been a tradition of the Church, but recent times suggest we may have fallen out of practice of this beautiful and necessary act of charity.

It is a strange thing to do, to pray for the dead. After all, what are we actually praying for the dead to obtain? The answer to this is based on the reality of Purgatory. Purgatory, another tradition not spoken of much today, is real. But what exactly is it?

To understand this we need to be aware that purgatory is not a necessarily a place but a process. Even here on earth, we are called to live a life of purgatory. The word purgatory means to purify, or in everyday language, to achieve the holiness necessary to enter into heaven. In other words, purgatory is a process which prepares us for heaven. 

When understood this way, purgatory is not just something for those who have died, but for all us living as well. All of us can be striving to prepare ourselves for heaven. However, as we know in our own life, we do not always take advantage of the time given to us here on earth. In fact, I can spend very little time preparing for heaven and rather spend a lot of time preparing for life on earth.

Purgatory is the opportunity given by God to prepare for heaven if we need it. That said, we might be tempted to ask why do we need to prepare for heaven at all?

If I were to die right now and go straight to heaven, I would immediately feel as if I do not belong because there are many things I am still attached to here on earth. Even if I am free from sin, there are still sins I have the desire to commit. I would feel as if I was unworthy as I stood among all the saints who completely entrusted their life to God. If we are honest, we know that even our loved ones who have died were not perfect. To account for this, God gives us the process of purgatory.

Purgatory prepares us for a place in heaven. When we pray for the dead, we are praying that this process may go quick. That they may purify and prepare themselves for heaven as fast as possible. We are encouraging and helping them.

When thought of in this way, purgatory does not seem all that bad or scary, in fact it is a great thing, for it allows us to experience the full joy of heaven.   

The Hidden Room

Whenever I am invited over to a house I am always reminded of the times when my family had the priest over for dinner. I remember how special it was that Father so and so was going to be sitting at our table. I also remember how much work it could be as well. While the visit itself was fun, the preparation for the priest’s visit was a different matter. Growing up in a family of seven, our house was not the most organized. This meant that afternoons were spent with every child’s favorite past time: chores and cleaning.

On the day of Father’s visit, all hands were on deck to make the house presentable. As the hours ticked by, my siblings and I used every trick we knew to excuse ourselves from the task at hand (much to the frustration of my parents), until time inevitably began to run out.

With plenty of toys and hobbies still spewed throughout the house, my Mother would give one final desperate command: “throw everything in the bedroom”! It was an easy, efficient, and effective solution. When Father arrived he walked into a clean and put together household. Little did he know that behind a certain closed door lay a chaotic mess.

I am sure many families share this particular experience (which is why I don’t go opening closed doors during visits), but all of us can also relate on a personal level as well. How many of us do exactly this in our interior life? How many of us, worried about the mess in our emotional, spiritual, physical house, throw it all into a hidden room of our heart? How many of us hide our mess even from God?

I know I do. I want people to see me as an organized, well put together person. In a strange way I even want God to see me in this way. So I hide my mess, I stressfully gather it all up and throw it in a separate room to be dealt with later. The problem is, I often do not deal with it later and I keep piling the mess even higher. Even more ironic, it’s the houses that are not the most organized which make me feel right at home, partly because it makes it all more human.  

God did not become man in the person of Jesus Christ because we are organized and put together. God became man because we are a mess. The more we hide our mess from him the less he can help us truly clean up. So I guess the question is: what mess are we hiding from God?

Greener Grass

One of the greatest and unexpected reasons I am a priest today came about when I was sitting in my formator’s office telling him I was thinking of leaving the seminary. My first year of college seminary was not as easy as I had hoped and I found myself struggling quite early on in my discernment. By the time the semester was well under way, I already was considering leaving the seminary. I felt spiritually dry. I remember telling the priest all of the things I had left behind for seminary and my desire to go back to them.

The priest listened intently and patiently as I went down the list of reasons why I should leave. When I finished he leaned forward in his chair and said, “You know Tim, the grass is always greener on the other side, and at times we want to leave our ugly looking grass and move. But sometimes, we just need to water our own grass.”

Sometimes we just need to water our own grass. It’s a simple lesson, yet it was a lesson that kept me in seminary and eventually a priest. I began to focus on what was causing my spiritual grass to die and what care it needed. It took some time, but eventually, I became quite happy and content with how green my own grass had become. 

Sometimes we get so caught up in looking around us that we neglect to water and care for ourselves. As we become focused on what we do not have, what we actually have begins to suffer. We then want to give up and move on to newer and better things. It becomes a vicious cycle. The more we look outward the more our grass dies until we eventually move on to greener grass. 

We all have times when we wish we could be elsewhere or further along than we are, especially in our faith. The temptation can be to move on to others things and give up. Let’s try a different approach. For as much as the grass looks greener on the other side, sometimes we just need to water our own grass.