22nd Sunday after Pentecost 6 November 2022 Purgatory
We are made to know love and serve God. This is not well known and may take a lifetime or a little more to grasp it.
Many people do not know this, or do not believe it, or may not care.
Even we who give God some space may still see Him as only a part of our world, in which we have so much else to do.
It is so easy to pick the wrong goals, the wrong things to chase after in this life. There are so many false signals, confused ideas.
It should be straightforward but our sins have made it confusing.
We eat when we are hungry, we sleep when we are tired, but on spiritual matters it has all become cloudy.
God is patient, however, and gives us a lot of time to find Him in the midst of it all.
We can find Him, and for this we pray.
Many will not find out this central point until death.
They may be saved, as in having some recognition of God, but still not ready to enter the splendour of Heaven.
Thus we have Purgatory, a place of purification and clarification for those who need further repairs before they can enter Heaven.
God accepts our prayer for each other, and this applies also for the dead. We can assist them by directing God's mercy towards them in their need.
They will then be able to come to a stronger love for God, realizing then what they do not know yet, that God made us to love Him.
[This was for our benefit more than for Him. He is all sufficient to Himself but we are not sufficient for ourselves]
In the end we do not love anything or anyone more than we love God.
Here on earth we have many insights into God's nature and ways of working with us.
If we are sensitive to the signs we will get a lot of things right before we die, and will not be languishing in Purgatory.
It will also help us to run our earthly lives much more efficiently if we do that one thing, and put God first.
It becomes easier for us to turn away from sin and pursue the prize that really matters
Purgatory can be longer for some than others because there is more to be worked through.
We rejoice when someone repents after maybe many years of neglecting their faith.
They may still have hurdles to overcome, however. Many, for instance, find it hard to forgive those who have offended them.
God's grace is on hand for all needs, large or small.
Even in this life we can perceive that some sins or wrong attitudes are harder to shake off than others. The seven deadly sins would give a fair summary of those.
It is hard to shed bad habits all at once and completely. We feel the need for help to do that… Lord, make me patient etc… And so for the souls in Purgatory there may be a real struggle before they can see things from God's point of view.
We do not know the precise mechanics of how it works, but we do know that our prayer and sacrifice can help those souls, as it will also benefit us.
Anytime we focus on the next life we immediately feel a pull in the right directions as regards this life.
May we all come to know the simple but elusive truth that we are made to know, love and serve God.
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