The Journey Home

Homily for All Souls Day
2 November 2009
St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center
Year for Priests

For daily readings, click here

According to most story tellers, there are two basic metaphors that describe what life is. Life is a battle. Life is a journey. Every good story, and every interesting life, is a combination of these two metaphors. Where am I going? What are the obstacles in my way?

My younger brother recently had heart surgery. He was going through a battle to fix his heart. Several people were helping my brother through this battle - his surgeon and nurses and those who were there before and after surgery to encourage him, but there were hundreds of others who were helping him through their prayers. Everyone was checking in on my brother, trying to get the latest information, to be sure that he was going to be victorious in this battle. And thanks be to God, he was.

We do the same for our friends who are on a journey. How many times in life do we say - have a safe trip! Call me when you get home, or to your destination. Some of the best stories in life come from traveling, especially when things get rough on the road or in the air! We pray for those who are traveling, trusting that things will go fine, but knowing all too well that life is precarious, especially when you are on the road!

On all souls day, we do the same for our friends who have gone before us. We check in on them, and we help them in whatever way we can in whatever battle and whatever journey they have remaining in front of them. There are thousands of battles, and thousands of journeys, that make up every human life. Today's feast given us by the Church focuses on the final journey and the final battle common to every life, the journey and battle that lies between the moment of one's death in this world and one's entry into the eternal presence of God.

Heaven, as we know well, is the place for holy ones, for the saints, those who have fulfilled the commandment to love God with all one's heart, and mind and soul and strength. If we are honest, most of us, and most all our friends, have managed to only partially fulfill this commandment. We may be good people overall, preferring nothing to the love of God, but we still love many things besides God. Almost all of us manage to become good people overall, but few of us are holy. Very few people on their death bed declare themselves to be saints; no quite to the contrary, they while being thankful for their life wish that they could have done more. Unlike the saints, we have not yet been able to love God with all our heart, all our mind, all our soul, and all our strength, nor our neighbor as much as we love ourselves. Tonight's feast of all souls says that what is true for us is true for most our friends who have gone before us. Our friends and family members are good people, whose perseverence through many journeys and many battles in life have shown that their lives are ordered to heaven, but at the moment of their death, they may not yet have been holy. Tonight's feast is not about the transition from bad to good, as much as it is the transition from good to holy. Both transitions are important. Both are necessary. Each transition has its own battles. Yet those of us who have tried to become holy know that the journey from bad to good is simple compared to the final journey from being good to being holy.

Given that most of us die being good not holy, there is this final journey and battle, the purification of a soul, that takes place between this world and entry into heaven. It does no good to pretend that any good person goes directly to heaven; to do so is to pretend that every decent person is a saint, and that there is no real difference between being good and being holy, neither of which is true. Anybody who has attempted this transition knows how different the two states really are. There is a difference between me and Maximilian Kolbe, between my friends and St. Therese of Lisieux, between my family members and St. Lawrence. It would be unjust for me to think I, who love God partially, should enter heaven as readily as those who love God completely. The reading from Wisdom tells us that the souls of the just are in the hands of God. Purgatory is that process of justice by which we are made like the saints, so that we may justly take our seat with them at the heavenly banquet.

Christ has begun this justification by his passion and death. Only because of his salvific act, the bridge has been repaired between man and God, and the journey to heaven is possible once again. Christ has won the victory over sin and death, and anyone who asks Christ to share in that victory knows that our sins may for a time lead us away from God, but through the experience of having our sins forgiven, our sins may be the means by which we come to know the love of God most fully, and desire to love Him in return like the saints, with all of our mind, all of our soul, and all of our strength.

Christ has justified us and made possible the journey from death to life, from sin to holiness, from earth to heaven, but Christ will not save us without ourselves. As St. Paul says to us clearly in his letter to the Romans, the resurrection is a surety for those who have grown into union with Christ through a death like his. Christ himself said as much, saying that his disciples would not be able to skip the journey and battles inherent in the transition from being good to becoming holy, but must take up their own crosses and follow Him.

Purgatory is the last step on our journey with Christ from death to life. It is probably the most important part of the journey, and perhaps the most difficult. We do not know for sure how long or short this transition is, how hot or cold, how difficult or easy, or where exactly our loved ones are along the journey, whether they are at the beginning, or the end, or somewhere in between. The journeys of persons through purgatory are as different as are the journeys of persons through life on this earth. We do know however, that this necessary journey would be an impossible one were it not for us. The last journey would be the most impossible of all were it not for us, since those who have died are no longer able to work out their salvation. Like my brother who going into battle to fix his heart had to have faith in his surgeon, his doctors, and his nurses, and his friends who were praying to God for Him, since he could not fix his heart by himself, so also we must leave this world in faith knowing that our friends that we leave behind will continue to pray for us and to suffer for us, until we are made holy. Christ has made us our brother's keepers, and what is done by one member of the body affects the whole body. It is our great privilege, and responsibility, and joy - all of us who know salvation to be Christ's gift not just to individuals, but to his whole bride - the Church - to offer prayers and sacrifices on this All Souls Day and every day for our beloved dead, and even for our enemies.

Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let the perpetual light shine upon them. May they rest in peace. May their souls, and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.