It was the
winter of 1976 – I was a junior at Bishop Kearney, and it was before my adolescent
growth spurt – at barely 5 feet tall, I was one of the shortest guys in the
class. In gym class we were doing two
man-piggy-back relay races – and I was paired up with the tallest guy in the
class. Long story short, he carried me
to one end of the gym and we were way ahead, where we switched and I, the
shortest, had to put him, the tallest, on my back. We made it about half way back when started
to lean forward and next thing you know we were both sprawled on the gym floor,
me with three bones broken in my hand and a front tooth chipped in two. I made my way to the nurse’s office who called
my mother to come get me, and my good Catholic mother, God rest her soul, instructed
the nurse to tell me that I should “offer it up for the poor souls in purgatory.” Oh, and take the bus home, she said – but the
bus didn’t come until four hours later!
I’m pretty sure I freed a lot of “poor souls” that day.
The reason I bring this up now is
this concept, this almost exclusively Catholic concept, of purgatory. Purgatory - this place, or process, after we
die, if we die in a state of grace, in which we are purged of our sins and made
perfect, for the book of Revelation tells us that nothing imperfect may enter
into the presence of God. We think of purgatory
as a place of discipline, of suffering even, of being tried as gold in a furnace,
our impurities burned away. The
catechism says of purgatory that it’s a "purification,
so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of
heaven." Holiness. Whatever in us is not holy, whatever is not
pure, is burned away so that by the grace of Christ, we are made perfectly
holy.
If that process of being made holy
is what purgatory is in the hereafter, well isn’t the season of lent supposed
to be a little like that here, in this lifetime?
A time of submitting ourselves to discipline,
of being made pure, maybe by suffering or self-sacrifice, by frequent prayer, and
almsgiving – giving of ourselves to those less fortunate. A time of self-examination to realize all the
ways in which we are sinners, the ways in which we are slaves to sin, and to seek
out the mercy of God, to be forgiven of those sins and receive the grace to be
freed from sin, to transcend that sinfulness.
So that after this forty days we are transformed into something new -
someone new – someone more closely conformed to Jesus Christ.
In a word, Lent is a time to
achieve, by God’s grace and our cooperation, holiness.
My sisters and brothers, you are
obviously serious about spending your lent profitably or you wouldn’t be here
this morning/evening. Obviously serious
about fasting, repentance, prayer and almsgiving in order to grow closer to the
Lord, to grow in holiness, to let Him transform you into the disciple He’s
calling you to be, indeed the disciple He created you to be.
But let me give you one more vision
of purgatory and lent.
If the Kingdom of Heaven is a place
of perfect love, a place in which rather than to be served and waited on, all
God’s children will love and serve each other perfectly and selflessly, then
perhaps purgatory is the process of purging us of all the ways in which we fail
- to love each other, the ways in which we neglect each other, failing to even
recognize Christ in our brothers and sisters among us.
Then so, too, might our lent be – a
time of recognizing in the here and now (or more accurately, by prayer and
reflection, Our Lord showing us), all the ways in which we fail to love each
other, here and now. Showing us those
among us whom we fail to see, fail to love, fail to serve. Showing us the ways in which our hearts are
closed and hardened. The ways in which
we’re turned in on ourselves. So that by
His grace and mercy we may be transformed, given new hearts, and come to love
each other ever more perfectly.
And so, my brothers and sisters,
that is my prayer for Lent 2014 – that by God’s grace and by the Precious Blood
of His Son on the Cross, you and I may allow Him during this holy season to
purge us of our sinfulness, shower us with His mercy, and open our eyes, minds
and hearts to love as He loves. Through
Christ Our Lord. Amen.
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