Pray for the souls in Purgatory

 Deacon Kevin Gingras

Oct 26th, 2025

30th Sunday in Ordinary Time

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/111625.cfm

Malachi 3:19-20a  Psalm 98:5-6, 7-8, 9

2 Thessalonians 3:7-12    Luke 21:5-19

Today, I wanted to walk up and down the sidewalk outside the church, carrying a sandwich board that read: “Repent for the end is near!” but I thought better of that.  Today’s homily does have that fire and brimstone feel to it:

See that you not be deceived, for many will come in my name, saying, 'I am he,' and 'The time has come.' Do not follow them! When you hear of wars and insurrections, do not be terrified, for such things must happen first… Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be powerful earthquakes, famines, and plagues from place to place… they will seize and persecute you,

Scary stuff, right?  This teaching is what probably got the Thessalonians to think Jesus was coming back and really soon.  So soon, some of them had just stopped working to wait.  St. Paul had to set them straight in his letter.  We don’t know the time or the hour; we just know some day the time will come, and we will get to our particular judgment.  This occurs at the moment of death, where each individual is judged based on the life they led according to God’s rules.  Our death is merely an end to our life here on Earth.

Gandalf the wizard from Tolkien’s book The Return of the King said about death:

End? No, the journey doesn't end here. Death is just another path, one that we all must take.

Jesus, in today’s Gospel, gives us hope when he tells us:

Not a hair on your head will be destroyed. By your perseverance, you will secure your lives.

And that is certainly good news, isn’t it! I recently started setting up for a baptism by placing the Easter candle front and center before the altar, and then the baptismal font just in front of that.  This is how our life in the church begins, by our baptism.  When our journey on earth has ended, the candle is in the same spot, and it is our casket that is in front.  The casket is sprinkled with holy water to remind us of our beginning.

Ok, back to our particular judgment that happens right at our death.  Three destinations await - Heaven for those who die fully in God’s grace, Purgatory for those who die in God’s love, but we still need some purification before we can be with God for eternity, and third is Hell for those who have died with mortal sin still on their souls and have rejected God’s love.

CCC 1030:

“All who die in God’s grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven.”

Why bring all this up now?  Because November is the month to remember all the souls in Purgatory.  We begin with All Saints’ Day (those who have died and are now in Heaven) and then have All Souls’ Day (those who have died and are in Purgatory).  The Church encourages us to pray for the dead, visit cemeteries, and attend Masses to pray for the dead.

A while back, there was a woman I knew very well who knew she was dying.  I asked her how she was doing, and she replied that she was fine.  I told her not to lie, I asked how she is really doing, and what I can do to help her.  Her response surprised me.  She said that when she dies, she wants me to make sure that people don’t saintify her - in other words, correct people who say she is in Heaven now.  She made me promise that I would tell those people to instead pray for her soul and not make that assumption.  Our prayers can help those who have gone before us attain Heaven.  In Purgatory, souls cannot pray for themselves.  When you lose a family member or somebody close to you, you now have a job to do!  That job is to pray for them, to help their souls get to Heaven from Purgatory!  Especially in November, but also in all other months.  Your prayer for a loved one today could be exactly what they need to attain entry into Heaven!

St. Gertrude’s had a great prayer for this:

Eternal Father, I offer Thee the Most Precious Blood of Thy Divine Son, Jesus, in union with the Masses said throughout the world today, for all the Holy Souls in Purgatory, for sinners everywhere, for sinners in the universal church, those in my own home and within my family. Amen.

This week I’ll end with two saint quotes, it’s that important!

Saint Padre Pio says

"We must empty Purgatory with our prayers."

And Saint John Paul II

“Praying for the souls in purgatory is the highest act of supernatural charity”

The Greatest is Love

 

Deacon Kevin Gingras

May 15, 2022

5th Sunday of Easter

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/051522.cfm

Faith, Hope, and Love are the three Theological Virtues.  We read in 1 Corinthians:

So faith, hope, love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

The greatest is love - why?  God is love and love is eternal.  When we die at our own particular judgment we can go to Heaven for eternity, Purgatory until we are ready to be in the presence of the perfect love of God, or to Damnation for eternity.  Let’s pray hard it’s not the latter!  

If and when we get to Heaven faith isn’t needed anymore since we will be in the presence of God and there is nothing left to hope for because we just attained it all, there is nothing better than Heaven, all we can hope for has been fullfilled!  Love is what remains, we will bask in the perfect Love of our Heavenly father.   

If we deserve eternal Damnation when we have our particular judgment, faith is gone as it will grant us nothing, hope is gone because it is hopeless, but we will suffer the knowledge of the Love of God that we have lost for eternity.  Love is eternal, God is eternal, God is love and love always remains, it is the greatest of the three Theological Virtues.

God gains nothing by us loving him.  God is omniscient, omnipotent, and doesn’t need our love at all but what is really cool about that downer of a statement is that while it is true God doesn’t need our love - God still WANTS our love anyway!

I’m not sure if this is still a thing but I can remember my kids making a macaroni necklace for my wife to give to her on Mother’s day.  They would paint the giant, uncooked macaroni different colors and then thread yarn through it and tie it off to make the necklace. They then presented it to her on Mother’s Day with a great big smile as if the gift was really a diamond necklace. To be bluntly honest the last thing my wife needs is a poorly painted necklace made of pasta but she accepted it and loved the kids all the more!  She didn’t need it but she wanted it because it was a gift from one of her children.  Now I’m not saying we all should make macaroni necklaces for God, no, instead what I am saying is exactly what the Gospel of Mark tells us in chapter 12, verse 30:

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.

We are God’s children and love is the gift that God wants from us.  So what are some tangible ways we can love God this way?

Love God not because it helps God, because it doesn’t, love God instead because it helps us.  We are created by God to love God so going against that is going against the very fiber of our being!  We love God by adoring him in adoration, going to Mass, and then giving God our FULL attention at Mass, evangelizing, tell others about God’s love, especially about His son Jesus Christ.  Receive the sacraments, follow God’s commandments, and try to stay in a state of grace. We know this isn’t always easy.  We see that in the reading from Acts today:

They strengthened the spirits of the disciples and exhorted them to persevere in the faith, saying, “It is necessary for us to undergo many hardships to enter the kingdom of God.”

So persevere in the faith, that is how we show God we love Him.

Love yourself too!  Sounds funny to say that but we all are God’s creation, ourselves included and sometimes we forget ourselves in that.  Don’t love yourself to the point of becoming a narcissist standing in front of a mirror flexing and telling yourself how great you are.  Love yourself enough to forgive yourself.  Get to confession, tell the priest your sins, and realize you are absolved of your sins, do not beat yourself up over them thinking you are a horrible person.

Our Gospel gives us another way to show we love God:

I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another. This is how all will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another.

We must see God in all other humans because we are all creations of God, not just those folks we like, but those we dislike, yeah, they are also part of God’s creation too!

Cardinal Sarah talking about charity, also known as love states:

It urges us to evangelize; to put it simply, the Church reveals the Love of God.  Often the absence of God is the deepest root of human suffering. Consequently, a Christian cannot perform acts of charity only for his brethren in Christ but must do so for all men without any distinction.