Death and Purgatory

And one of the ways that we can get around that is when we believe in eternity, either in heaven or in hell. This isn’t the brain’s kind of like, well, okay. I guess there’s not an end then. I guess we just go to one of the other places and it kinda stretches itself to understand that now those places are real. I’m not saying that we just made them up so that our brains felt better, but when it feels uncomfortable to think about, I want you to know it’s because the base programming of your brain is to keep you breathing and alive. 

And so it just doesn’t really want to and it’s not very good at thinking about an afterlife, like what happens to us after our body dies and we stop breathing. Even when I think about it, it just makes me feel really tight in my body and I kind of panic a little thinking about dying, even though every single one of us knows that we’re going to die. You don’t like to think about it. But here’s why I think we should think about it and why the church in her goodness gives us the month of November. Where we think about and pray about the people who have died. We will die and we will go to heaven or we will go to hell. And some people have no sense of the percentage who go to purgatory before they go to heaven.  

But even my understanding is that, you know, that you are going to go to heaven and so there’s a joy that you experienced there, even though you experience suffering. But the suffering is related to knowing how good and powerful and loving God is. And then seeing your own sinfulness you’re on attachment to send it to the world. And so the process of cleansing you and detaching you from that is uncomfortable, but there’s joy there too, because you know, that you didn’t go to hell. You know, that God is real. There’s like a deep understanding and that brings you joy as well.  

And that’s important for us to contemplate how we live. It’s important for us to ask ourselves if I died right now, where would I go? One of the things that, to me, after becoming Catholic felt very watery about Protestantism is they kind of are just like, everyone’s going to make it. I mean, they don’t believe that everyone is saved, but a significant amount of them believe that once you become Christian. Once you give your life to Christ, that is kind of the check in the box that gets you to heaven.A lot of them believe in this idea that once you are saved, you’re always saved. And that seems logically wrong; you have to choose God all the time and you have to recognize your sins and repent of your sins.  

One of the arguments between Protestants and Catholics is around good works. And sometimes Protestants will accuse us of saying you believe that you have to do good works in order to go to heaven. That’s not what we believe at all. We believe that when you love God so much that your natural inclination is to serve him. And so your natural inclination is to do these works. And that is how we ought to feel when we pray a rosary or we go to mass now, not all of us feel that every time because we are sinners and we are selfish and we are distracted by the world.

But our pure intention of wanting to go to mass isn’t to put a check in a box, it’s just because we love God. And if you think about that, in your marriage or with your kids when you really love someone you want to do nice things for them and no one makes you and you don’t have to but you want to. But we do not confuse the works with salvation either. So we don’t think, oh, there’s Mary, she went to, I wasn’t thinking the blessed mother was just thinking, like a church lady there’s church lady, and she goes to mass every Sunday, she must be saved.  

But that isn’t true, she has to have a relationship with the Lord and repent of her sins and ask for forgiveness. And we don’t really, I think we don’t really understand the full equation of it because you can sin in your life and then ask for forgiveness and still not end up in hell. But if the equation isn’t quite right that’s when purgatory comes into play. Where God in his mercy says, okay I believe that you believed in me and that you wanted to give your life to me. But you are still there’s parts of you that are attached to the world, and we’re going to clean those out before you come to heaven. So it was just a couple of days ago, and I don’t know if this is approved or not. It was a mystic from a long time ago.  

And she was visited by two people who had died at similar times. And one was the priest at her parish and one was from a prostitute who lived in the area. So it felt like it was in a rural area, like 17 hundred. That’s how the story felt, it felt like it was pretty old. And the prostitute went straight to heaven and the priest it was described that he was in the deepest recesses of purgatory. And they were both allowed to come visit her and tell her why. And she said that the priest, even though outwardly, lived a very devout life. He was very judgmental in his heart. He was judgmental towards the parishioners and what they did. And he was also particularly judgmental of this prostitute and did not allow her to be buried in the cemetery.  

He said she was so sinful, she’s not allowed to be buried in the cemetery. And the prostitute when she was dying, she said, Lord thank you for letting me die so that my life does not offend you anymore. She acknowledged her sin to the Lord. She must’ve asked for forgiveness too, but to contrast those two lives when I read that it made a lot of sense to me. That I think some of us think we’re doing just fine. And we have to wonder what is the state of our hearts? What is the state of our hearts towards other people? And what is the state of our hearts to the Lord?  

I talked to the Lord every day, but I also got really grumpy with the Lord too. I get really like, Hey, this isn’t fair. This isn’t what I signed up for. And this hurts and I don’t like it. And when I catch myself doing that, I apologize. I asked for forgiveness and then came to the Lord and I say, I’m sorry, I’m sorry that I was doubting you, that I was questioning you. But if I didn’t do that, If I just thought it was fine to be grumpy with the Lord all the time and I spent 30 years doing that. That will build up a lot of gunk on my body if we could see spiritual gunk.  

And I think it’s easy for us to think we’re doing all right. And that is my fear for Protestants is that they just, they kind of coast, they kind of hang out. They think Jesus is like the happy dad in the sky. And he just loves everything that we do and everything is fine.  

And there is a part of him that loves us completely. But there is a part of him that has righteous anger over our sinfulness. And it is far worth the effort to find it and root out and clean off your soul. Far worth the effort more than probably whatever it is that you’ve been worried about. We worry about such worldly things. There is, oh, when this comes out, it’ll be the day after the election. And hopefully that is just resolved and it doesn’t linger. But a lot of people have been having very, very strong feelings about which way it will go.

But I’m just here to tell you, it just doesn’t matter. It does not matter for the salvation of your soul. It may matter for the I don’t know, economy and the way that we live in the world, I’m not saying it’s not important. But it’s certainly not as important as being right with the Lord and asking for forgiveness and making sure that not only we go to heaven, but we lead our husbands and our children there as well.  

We have to dwell on it enough. You don’t have to dwell on it all the time. We don’t have to walk around the email death all the time and feeling bummed out. God does not give us a spirit of fear. He wants us to be at peace. He says so over and over and over again. But I also think we can’t put it in a box and put it under our bed and not think about it ever. And that’s why I love the month of November. It’s such a beautiful month to think about your own mortality and to pray for the souls in purgatory. Because our prayers really matter. I pray and I feel it my whole heart. I’m just like, Lord, have mercy on them and release them, please. I love writing the names of people who have died in the books. Your parish probably has a book where you can write their names. You can have masses said for people who have died. It really, really matters.  

And I think it’s one of the most beautiful parts of our faith, the way we care for people and pray for them after they die. And we don’t have to do it because we’re scared. When you love someone you want to do nice things for them. And this is one of the ways that we can love the people who were important to us. And it’s also a way that we can honor people that the Lord has created, the Lord created those people. And so it’s loving him to love them as well.  

So I want you to think about what feels heavy on your heart, what you feel worried about. And we all have things I’m, you know, I there’s always like a kiddo or two where I’m like, Ooh, what’s going on with that kid? Or I’m worried about that kiddo. And there’s always how’s things and money things and health things and there’s just lots of things. I’m not saying we shouldn’t, I  think about our lives or try to improve them. In fact, my entire podcast is pretty much about improving your life, but I just think that whole bucket of stuff has to sit below.  

Wanting salvation; believing in the gospel message, believing in heaven, believing in purgatory. And being right with the Lord and teaching our children that’s the most important thing too. And I will often joke with them when I’m homeschooling them. And, you know, let’s say we’re learning about articles in parts of speech. And I will make a joke, but is this really important?

And now they know, and then they’re like, no, our salvation is important. I’m like, right this is kind of important and we can kind of learn it. But it isn’t a salvation issue whether, you know, the articles of the parts of speech. And I really believe that, so make sure that you are teaching your children how to talk to God. How to recognize sin and how to ask for forgiveness.  

If you think about it, we’re so on the kids about being dirty we live in the country. So my boys will literally come in with dirt all over them and when I see them with all over them my inclination is to say, oh, we’re going to give you a bath and clean you up. But there’s a sin version of that as well, that after the age of reason. They’re going to come home or come in from playing and there will be some amount of sinful dirt on them and we want to teach them to recognize it and to wash it off.  

And because of Faustina, I love Faustina so much and the message of divine mercy. I just feel okay. I feel good about the whole thing instead of feeling scared. Like, I’m going to get in trouble with my dad. I feel this quiet, humble, like, yeah, of course I sin a lot. And of course I did that again. And of course I was thinking that. And please have mercy on me and I just fully expect the mercy ’cause he said. He said, I have endless mercy for you, but you have to ask.  

So there’s a woman whose name is Susan Tassone, and she both loves Faustina and purgatory, so I love Susan and she has written a ton of books. Some that are just about purgatory and some that are just about Faustina. And I believe one book that is “Praying for the holy souls in purgatory through the writings of Saint Faustina”. 

So you can combine the both in that book as well. And I think that one is like a 365 day, you know, prayer day with Saint Faustina. So you can check those out. If you want to learn more about purgatory and teach your kids more about it. But I think it’s really important that we acknowledge that we’re going to die. There’s this debt to be paid. It’s real. And we can work on it right now. We can clean it out and work on it right now. And we can teach our kids to do that.  

And we are going to die. And yes, we need to, the humans in the world right now. And there are things like houses and money and food, and we’ve got to figure that out. But we do not have to be crippled by fear about those things. They’re very, very little compared to where we will spend eternity. And please say some extra rosaries or go to daily mass once. In the month of November and pray for the people, you know, that have died, pray for their souls and ask God to have mercy on them. It is such an incredible gift that we can give them.  

All right. My friends, I’m praying for you. Please pray for me. Thank you so much for listening and have a blessed day.