Purgatory and the Scenic Joys of Oregon

Bishop Robert Vasa of Baker, Oregon, writes a weekly column in Catholic Sentinel, the papers that serves the Archdiocese of Portland in Oregon and the Diocese of Baker, which cover the state between them. Bishop Vasa has to travel vast distances as his diocese is nearly twice as big as Mindanao and more than twice the area of Ireland. He often writes about his trips and the people he meets on his pastoral visits. He can tantalize his readers with his descriptions of the scenery along the way, such as that in Wallowa County (above) where he spent the weekend of All Saints' and All Souls' Days.

More importantly, he uses his columns to give the Church's teaching very clearly and in a truly pastoral manner. Sometimes the word 'pastoral' is used when the language used is that of 'fudge' rather than of hard truth. He writes in the second part of his latest column about praying for the souls in purgatory and I've highlighted part of his message. I've been present at too many premature 'canonizations' and, while trying to point out the goodness of persons at their funerals, without eulogizing them, I try to stress the importance of praying for them.

I have used Bishop Vasa's columns on occasion in Misyon and he has given me permission to use his material.

Catholic Sentinel 11/20/2008

Trips to Diocese of Baker parishes filled with scenic joys

By Bishop Robert Vasa of Baker, Oregon

BEND — It seems like a long time since I have written about a recent travel experience within the Diocese. While there have been occasions of travel within the diocese other matters have been a bit more pre-occupying and have precluded any kind of detailed travel account. This week, however, even though there is an abundance of other matters to make comment upon, I need to make a couple of observations about a recent trip to Wallowa County. The two parishes I visited are the furthermost parishes of the diocese, Saint Katherine at Enterprise and Saint Pius X at Wallowa. While I did try to watch the odometer I can only guess that the actual one-way mileage is something in the neighborhood of 340 to 350 miles. Thus I spent a good portion of a Saturday traveling there and a good portion of Sunday traveling back. It was a most enjoyable trip.

The fall colors along Highway 97, through the Columbia Gorge, over the Blue Mountains and into the Wallowa Mountains were just short of spectacular. Low-hanging, wintry clouds portended rain or even snow and softened the otherwise harsh light of the sun. Clearly it is fall. There were any number of occasions when, rounding a curve or cresting a rise a brand new fall-rewritten scene began to present itself in such a way that I tended to strain upward or right or left to get just a little more of an advance view of what was coming. Both the trip there and the return were filled with these kinds of scenic joys. The most memorable for me, however, was the area between Enterprise and Wallowa on the return trip. The clouds were a bit heavier, just a little more foreboding of the coming winter, and yet so brightly lit that they were not the least bit unwelcome. The magnificent composition of clouds and sun and mountains and river and colorful trees and intervening river valley was wonderfully refreshing.

That portion of the trip was reminiscent for me of the wonderful spirit and attitude of the people with whom I had the opportunity to celebrate Mass, share meals and swap stories. Confirmation was held on Saturday evening for the seven children of the parish of confirmation age. The number seven made it possible for me to ask one gift of the Holy Spirit from each child which proved to be easy for the first several children and a bit more difficult as memories strained both to remember the seven gifts as well as to remember which had already been claimed. It also allowed the same process for the seven sacraments with a comparable two-fold memory strain. As usual, I think I enjoyed the questioning more than the children did.

I was very pleased that, at the end of Mass on Sunday morning, a parish representative at Enterprise stood and announced the support of the parish for the Powell Butte Retreat Center. Though the parishes at Enterprise and Wallowa are located in one of the most beautiful and retreat-like parts of the state and though they are the most distant from the retreat site they recognize that we are building something for the future which serves the whole diocese and they wanted to assure that I knew of their support. I commend them for their faith.

Since my visit coincided with the celebration of All Saints Day and All Souls Day it was not possible to avoid the topic of purgatory. It often happens at funerals that the consoling hope that the dearly departed is in heaven with God leads to an over-exaggerated statement that the newly departed is in heaven already. This, of course, is merely conjectured and not known. It is hoped for but not certain. Nonetheless these compassionate sermons can generate within us a profound sense of peace and even joy at the thought that our loved ones are with God. This does sound wonderful but we do not know if it is true or not. Imagine yourself having just died and having discovered that all of your past attachments to sin, which were never completely denounced, have trailed you into eternity. Imagine your shock as you discover that you must now spend (by analogy) one hundred years in purgatory. Imagine your hope as you recognize that the assiduous prayers and Masses offered by your friends and relatives on earth will greatly reduce your purgatorial sentence. Finally, imagine your shock and dismay as you see your family and friends still on earth “canonizing” you and rejoicing that you have no need of their prayers because you are already enjoying the beatific vision, already seeing God face-to-face. These are the ones whom we in the Church refer to as the Poor Souls.

Undoubtedly, it is consoling for us on earth to envision our loved ones as already united with God in heaven but it is much more consoling for the poor souls in purgatory for us to presume that they are not yet fully reconciled with God. There is no harm done in praying for someone as if they were still in purgatory even if they are, in fact, in heaven. There is, by contrast, great harm done in not praying for someone because of a conviction that they are in heaven when they are, in fact, among the Poor and forgotten souls in purgatory. Put yourself in their shoes and pray for them as you will want your children and grandchildren to pray for you. A simple test. Call to mind those whom you know and love who have died in the past year. While you will certainly have recalled them many times in memory, have you also remembered on those occasions to say a decade of the rosary for them, have a Mass offered for them or gathered the family together to pray a rosary for the happy repose of the soul of that loved one? It is good to be remembered, it is better to be remembered in prayer.

All Souls Day this year was particularly poignant for me because one year ago my family and I were keeping vigil with Mom during her last days. She died on November 3 and so the approach of that one year anniversary made this year’s liturgical passage through All Saints Day and All Souls’ Day very memorable. Eternal rest grant unto her, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon her. May her soul and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen. Let us remember to pray throughout the year for the poor souls in purgatory.

A 'Good' Funeral

A “Good” Funeral

Negros Times 29-30 October 2008

The writer edits www.misyononline.com and has a blog at www.bangortobobbio.blogspot.com . You may contact him at undertheacacia@gmail.com

“As funerals go, it was a good one”. So spoke my former seminary rector, Fr. Joseph Flynn, after the funeral in Ireland in June 1997 of Fr. Frank Baragry who had spent almost 40 years in Mindanao. Father Baragry, whose older brother Father Dan had been working in the Philippines since 1955, was only 64. So there was a great sense of grief and loss.

So what made it a “good” funeral?

One unusual aspect was the large number of Filipinos present. They included Columban lay missionaries, religious sisters assigned to Ireland, some Filipinos married there and quite a few Columban priests home from the Philippines on vacation during the Irish summer. From among these a choir was formed that sang hymns in Cebuano.

This certainly helped to make the occasion a “good” funeral. But at the heart of the matter was a strong Catholic Christian faith. Because our Lord Jesus Christ rose from the dead, we can hope for the same. For centuries in every parish in the Philippines children have been proclaiming the Resurrection on Easter Sunday morning at the Salubong/Encuentro/Pagsugat as our Mother Mary, her statue carried by women, casts aside her mourning cloak when she meets her Risen son, his statue carried by men. Young girls dressed in white scatter petals of flowers as they sing “Resurrexit sicut dixit, Alleluia, alleluia”, “He has risen as he said, Alleluia, alleluia”.

And for centuries Filipinos have been living that same faith as they grieve for those who have died. Filipino wakes, like Irish ones, are not only mournful occasions but joyful ones too as people share stories about the deceased, as they laugh and cry at the same time. Only once have I experienced the full novena for the dead in the Philippines. A young man of 25 whose family was very close to me died after a motorcycle accident one Saturday morning. I had greeted him after Mass just a few hours before and anointed him after returning from a barrio fiesta when he was on the point of death.

I could see that the novena is a wonderful mixture of faith and basic humanity. In this particular case the whole town was in mourning. Jimmy was the second child and the eldest son in a family of six who had lost their father in an accident when the eldest was only 12 and the youngest less than a year. Jimmy was like a father to the rest. During the novena the people helped the family come to terms with their grief by their presence and by their prayers. The funeral Mass was the most difficult I have ever celebrated but I found my faith deepened when Jimmy’s mother, Ponying, offered him to God as he was being buried.

In Ireland we don’t have a novena for the dead and funerals take place within two or three days. People visit the house, where the wake usually takes place, though funeral parlors are not unknown in modern Ireland. Neighbors bring in sandwiches and cakes and make endless pots of tea and coffee for the visitors. The remains are brought to the church the evening before burial for what is called “the removal”. This is a Service of the Word led by the priest and takes place at 5:30 or 6 PM so that people can attend on their way home from work. Many who cannot attend the funeral the following day come to that service. The funeral Mass usually takes place the following morning and after the burial there is usually a meal.

One Irish practice that Filipinos find very strange is that the remains are left alone in the locked church overnight after the “removal”.

That wasn’t the case the night before Father Baragry was buried, as his remains were in the chapel of what was once a seminary with nearly 200 students but that now has none. And I know that some of the Filipinos kept vigil through the night before his burial.

But at the heart of it all, for Filipinos and for the Irish, especially in the past when the Catholic faith was much stronger in Ireland than it is now, is our hope in the Resurrection. Death is not the end, but the entrance to eternal life. And there is a healthy awareness of our unworthiness and of the need to pray for the dead, of the need for purification. A comparison I find useful is the help persons need before their wedding. They want to look their best. They wouldn’t go to the church in their working clothes or without taking a shower. Yet they feel a great sense of excitement while still preparing.

My understanding of purgatory is something like that: the soul knows the joy of having been saved but also knows that it is not yet ready to face God. It’s not a question of punishment but rather of the need to prepare more. There’s a sense of hiya, of “shame” in the Philippine sense. And the dead who are preparing to come into God’s presence are truly helped by our prayers just as a bride and groom preparing for their wedding are helped by those taking care of the many details that go with it.

Of course, what is most important of all when it comes to a wedding is preparing for marriage. A wedding is only for a day while marriage is for life. And our living faith in Jesus Christ in our daily lives is, with God’s grace and the prayers of our friends, the best preparation not only for death but for eternal life.

As we remember the dead this coming weekend, may we pray for the grace for our families and friends of a “good” funeral when our time comes.

undertheacacia@gmail.com