Salve, Regina, Mater Misericordiae.
Today we commemorate all the faithful departed,
brothers and sisters who are in purgatory.
And yesterday we celebrated the saints in heaven.
So we're really kind of celebrating the,
we're reflecting on the last things in life,
heaven, hell, today purgatory,
which makes us think of death and judgment.
All these last things that put everything,
put our life in perspective,
that make us really look at reality.
The next life is reality in its fullness
because that's eternity.
The one, we live that day,
that day in eternity that lasts forever.
And that's reality in the world that we live in.
It's sort of, the reality is kind of,
it slips from our hands.
It's, everything is passing.
There's vanity.
There's all kinds of deception.
And things that are a part of our imagination,
things that are unreal, things that are real in this life,
but things that are unreal too.
And things that we imagine and things
that we're told that are not true.
And there's truth and falsity and vanity
and passing in this world.
But in the next world, everything is set.
Everything is set for eternity and that's,
that's the reality.
the real reality, and that's what we're reflecting on in these days.
All saints and all the faithful departed,
we're reflecting on the last things that we really should reflect on every day.
We should always reflect on heaven and hell, our death, our judgment, purgatory.
Purgatory in a special way makes us really reflect on our life
and how we're living our life because there are consequences to how we live our life,
whether we live a good life or whether we live a mediocre life,
whether we're neglecting what we should be doing
or we're positively doing evil, or even the good that we do,
are we doing it as best we can?
Are we doing it in a shoddy way or are we doing it to the best of our ability?
We will be judged.
We will be judged on all these things, and after the judgment comes consequences,
and the consequences we see in purgatory.
We see that in hell, of course, as well, but we're striving for salvation.
We're all striving for salvation.
We're living in the grace of God to the best of our ability,
but we can try harder.
We can do more, and the judgment day makes us reflect on that.
It makes us strive.
It makes us strive harder to do things, to do better,
to observe God's commandments more perfectly,
and that's reflecting on our own personal life,
but today we're also reflecting on the souls of our brothers and sisters
who are in purgatory, who are suffering.
They're suffering for the many mortal sins that they committed
that they didn't fully expiate in this life
and for venial sins that they were still attached to,
or they didn't make amends for as well in this life,
and that applies to us as well.
We have to think about that, too.
But our brothers and sisters who are in purgatory,
they are suffering intense pains and sufferings for their sins
many times more than the sufferings of this world we know,
and perhaps much longer than the sufferings that we had endured
in the past.
So it's important to reflect on the intensity of their sufferings
so that that would make our compassion intense as well for them
and makes us really reflect on the charity that we need to practice,
that they are our brothers and sisters.
They are part of the communion of saints,
as we speak of in the church's teachings,
the communion of saints,
the saints that are triumphant,
in heaven,
suffering in purgatory,
and we who are here,
the militant church,
and we're all a family.
We're all together helping each other.
The saints in heaven are helping us.
They're helping the souls in purgatory by their prayers.
The souls in purgatory are suffering.
They have nothing they can do to help themselves
out of their sufferings.
Only we can help them to alleviate their suffering,
to make it shorter for them
by all the practices that we can do to help them.
Offering Holy Mass,
that's the most powerful help
in speeding up their alleviation
and speedy entrance into heaven,
Holy Mass,
but also our prayers and sacrifices.
Perhaps we can offer a rosary for them each day
or as often as we can
to mitigate
their sufferings, to make them less. Our work, our prayers, our sacrifices, our holy communions,
which we offer, can offer up for them. St. Mary Magdalene tells us that her guardian angel
appeared to her once and said that her brother was in purgatory for a long time, would be there
for a long time, but if she offered up 105 communions, that he would be released. And so
after her 105th day, her guardian angel appeared to her. After 105 days of receiving communion for
him, her guardian angel appeared to her and said that he was freed and now in eternal life.
So that's the power of offering up our holy communions for souls in purgatory and for many
other intentions that we could do as well. But this mindfulness, this charity, this love for
our brothers and sisters and
purgatory, our love for our brothers and sisters here in this life as well,
we reflect on in these days. And especially in particular our own life, how we need to get our
own life in order, how we need to prepare for our own entrance perhaps into purgatory. If we,
chances are we would end up there because we can't get to heaven unless we are perfectly
purified of all of our
sins. If we have made amends for all of our sins, we can perhaps pray for martyrdom, which would give us
a direct entrance into heaven after death. But apart from that, we want to pray for ourselves and
sacrifice and pray for the grace to be freed from purgatory by accepting all of our sufferings of
this life, attending holy mass as often as we can, praying the
rosary as often as we can, being as devoted to Our Lady as we possibly can.
which is the Ark that we want to enter into, and so that we will be safe
and be brought to heaven as soon as possible. We have that promise of the
scadular that will be safe from the fires of hell if we die wearing the
scapular. But also the Sabatine privilege that if we fulfill certain conditions we
would
be freed from purgatory on the first Saturday after we die
by praying the little office of Our Lady or the Holy Rosary each day,
by living chastity according to our state in life,
by wearing the scapula and dying with it.
So the Church offers us many means to expiate our sins
and to limit our time in purgatory or to free ourselves from it altogether.
So let us use those means of the Church that we are given
and also strive to help our brothers and sisters to have compassion
for those who are in purgatory
and to help them to arrive at heaven as soon as possible.
Praise be Jesus and Mary.
Praise be Jesus and Mary.
Praise be Jesus and Mary.