The Unauthorized Homily

By Bill Dunn

A commentary on the Scripture readings from the Sunday Lectionary

(Scripture readings for Sunday, November 2nd: ??; ??; ??.)

ALL SAINTS, ALL SOULS, AND LIFE AFTER DEATH

This weekend is rather interesting. You’ll notice that I have a series of question marks listed instead of the specific Scripture readings. This is because Sunday is the feast of All Souls, and the official Lectionary has multiple options for each of the three readings. So I have no idea which verses you might hear at church.

Also, Saturday is All Saints Day, a holy day of obligation, a term which in a bygone era had a very complicated definition. It meant: “Holy day of obligation.” However, nowadays the term has a slightly different definition. It means: “Only if I feel like it.”

But never fear. Since All Saints Day falls on a Saturday this year, the bishops say we don’t have to treat it as a holy day. Whew! Almost had to go to Mass twice on one weekend! Heaven forbid. Actually, since we live in a era where religious apathy is rampant, and where the Church leadership seems quite content in keeping it that way, I suspect very few folks would have attended twice anyway.

(Not to go off on a tangent, but really, what’s going on here? Half the Catholics in America think the main message of the Gospel is that Jesus wants us to do whatever we feel like doing, and the bishops are OK with that level of ignorance? I think Jesus said something about those who cause others to sin, and millstones around necks, and being thrown into the sea, etc. I wouldn’t want to be in their shoes at the Final Judgment.)

So, getting back to these two special days. All Saints Day commemorates those who have attained the beatific vision in Heaven. In other words, the saints, the people who lived a life of faith during their time on earth, and now are being rewarded for all eternity by being in the glorious presence of God. We rejoice for these saints; we try to follow their example; and we ask them to pray for us to the Lord our God as we struggle to be faithful during our journey on earth.

All Saints used to be called All Hallows, hallow being a old fashioned word for holy. You know, like in the Lord’s Prayer: “…hallowed be thy name.” The day before All Hallows was known as All Hallows Evening, or All Hallows Eve. And “Hallows Eve” eventually was transformed into Halloween, October 31st, the day before All Saints Day. (See, you learn something new every day.)

All Souls Day commemorates the departed faithful who have not yet been purified and attained the beatific vision in Heaven. In other words, the souls in Purgatory, the people who trusted in Christ during their earthly lives, but who at the time of their deaths still had selfish attitudes and unrepentant venial sins in need of cleansing before they could enter into God’s presence.

Now, I don’t want to get into the whole “Is Purgatory real?” discussion again, other than to remind you: everyone who goes to Purgatory ends up in Heaven. We covered Purgatory in more detail back in August, so feel free to look it up when you get a chance at: http://www.boomertrek.com/archives/fa627.htm and http://www.boomertrek.com/Doctrines/Vol%201%20No%206%20-%20Purgatory.pdf

Let’s instead focus on a more basic aspect of the two feast days this weekend, All Saints and All Souls. Whether we want to admit it or not, there really, truly is life after death.

I read an awesome quotation recently, and unfortunately I can’t for the life of me track it down now. It was a play on Karl Marx’s famous insult: “Religion is the opiate of the masses.” In Marx’s view, religion is a silly fantasy to which people cling in order to make themselves feel better. Well, the quote I can’t locate went something like this: “The opiate of the secular masses is the idea that death is the end, and therefore final judgment will be avoided.” In other words, secular people deny there is life after death, and so they merrily embrace and promote sinful behavior, all the while clinging to the fantasy that they will get away with it.

As I’ve written many times, if there is no such thing as life after death, no Heaven or Hell, then Christianity is a huge waste of time. But if Heaven and Hell are real, and if every human soul is certain to spend eternity in either one of those two destinations (just as Jesus taught), then Christianity is the most important thing in the history of the universe.

This point cannot be made strongly enough. There is no middle ground. Anyone who claims that “this world is all there is, but Christianity is still a fine philosophy,” is smoking something. It’s a point-of-view that makes no sense. Which is why some mainline Protestant denominations and ultra-liberal Catholic groups have seen their membership figures plummet since the Secular Sixties. Christianity without life after death is like a restaurant without food. Why bother?

The last I checked, our good friends the bishops still believe Jesus’ teachings on this subject of life after death, and they still believe what’s written in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. So my question is this: if Jesus and the Catechism agree there are many behaviors which are “grave sins,” meaning these sins put a person’s eternal salvation at risk, then why in God’s name do we rarely if ever hear anyone in authority say something about it?

Are they afraid the secular world will label them as “judgmental”? I’ve got news for you, guys: the secular world already hates your guts because of the Church’s position on abortion. If you’re trying to get on the good side of the “enlightened elitists,” don’t waster your time. It will never happen. 

But maybe, just maybe, you might want to get on the good side of Jesus. Maybe you might want to take your shepherding responsibilities a bit more seriously. Maybe it’s time to think about how many people are destined to spend eternity in Hell because you’ve been too busy or too timid to proclaim the truth of the Gospel. Just a thought.

(Sorry about the rant, and sorry if it seems I’ve been bad-mouthing the Church in recent weeks. I firmly believe the Catholic Church possesses the true and full deposit of faith. It’s just that some Church bureaucrats remind me more of self-serving guys like Christopher Dodd and Barney Frank rather than bold and selfless preachers like St. Peter and St. Paul.)

Anyway, this weekend, when we celebrate two special days to commemorate those people who have passed from this life into the next, it would be a good time to ponder that we too will make that same passage—and maybe, who knows, fairly soon. So let’s make sure when that happens, we end up in the right place. Let’s make sure we spend eternity with the other saints in the glorious beatific vision.

©2008