Yesterday was All Saints Day, when Catholic believers honor those canonized as saints. Some are saints because of their holy lives. Some are saints because of their zeal and fortitude, like Saint Patrick. Some are saints because of their abilities to handle life’s trials and help others, like Mother Theresa. Some are saints because they were martyrs who died for the Faith instead of denying God and the truths they learned from the Church. The Apostles, many Christians during the days of the Romans, and people like Sir Thomas More are in this category. Others, like the Maccabees and Joan of Arc, served their nations at the call of God and died in battle or were killed treacherously or were executed openly, like Joan. The vast majority of saints are unknown but to their loved ones and some others, because they lived lives pleasing to God and He has called them home to Heaven.
Martyrdom of St. Perpetua. The soldier did not want to kill her but was under orders to do so. She guided his sword to her throat.
99 and I have been blessed to see the work of men like Junipero Serra, who evangelized California and showed the American Indians how to live in European-American society. We have placed our hands on the sarcophagus of King Wenceslas of the Czechs died a martyr to the Faith as he fought his pagan brother and other homicidal members of his court. We prayed before the tomb of his grandmother St. Ludmilla, whose own pagan daughter strangled her. We stood before the memorial to St. John Nepomuk, who a king killed because he would not divulge the queen’s confession. The king suspected his queen had an affair and wanted names. These holy people lay interred inside the churches of Prague Castle.
In Ireland, we stood at Tara, where St. Patrick evangelized the High King and members of his court, outside, at night, inside a ring of torches and armed guards. And on the eve of All Saints Day we attended Mass in the little village church in Lorraine in France where Joan of Arc was baptized, attended Mass, received Penance, Communion, and Confirmation, and learned her faith before God Himself sent her on a mission to free her people from the English. Since the town is remote, we were immediately the objects of the parishioners’ attention that evening. The priest knew enough English and 99 knew enough French so he and his parishioners could learn a little about us and what brought us to the home parish of such a famous saint.
And in Pittsburgh we saw the skulls, bones, and other relics of many martyrs and holy men and women of God, and a thorn from the Crown of Thorns. The pastor of Saint Anthony’s Chapel, in the Troy Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh, near where the steel mills used to be, had brought these to America when mobs in Germany and Italy were looting churches to support secular rulers of those lands and to grab the gold and silver that encased the relics. The church also has life-size Stations of the Cross carved from wood and painted like Nativity Scene figures which the pastor rescued from a church in Germany. St. Anthony’s Chapel is macabre and sobering at the same time, a place where I have undergone humbling examinations of conscience in the presence of the bones of those whose lives and deaths made them great.
All Souls’ Day, Franz Skarbina
Today is All Souls Day, in which Catholics pray for the repose of souls not in Hell, but not purified enough yet to be in Heaven. Not all Christians agree with us, but we will pray for their loved ones as well as ours, for God has not revealed to us who He has called home.
Now for a story about the flight of a soul and some thoughts for the day. Holy days exist so we can step back from our lives and reflect on what is truly important.
About two years ago, during the winter, 99 and I went to confession and attended the Saturday evening vigil Mass at a parish near the east bank of the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania. The parish church was a Gothic church built by German Catholics who settled in and around this little river town in the mid 1800s.
The purpose of the sacrament of Penance, for those of you who are not Catholics, is for a Catholic penitent to confess sins to a priest, have them forgiven, and start again in a better state.
After confession and while we waited for Mass, 99 prayed in a pew and I walked around and looked at the saints in the stained glass windows.
I imagined being an illiterate peasant and trying to figure out who the saints were, based on the items they were pictured with. Noble art instructs even those who cannot read but can think.
St. Sebastian was easy to figure. He was shown being shot full of arrows, a punishment for being a Christian in the Roman army. Lucy and Agatha, likewise. One lost her eyes, and the other had her teeth pulled out, before the pagans murdered them, so these items showed in their windows. And with St. Catherine …. the wheel and axe showed she was broken on a wheel and then beheaded.
Horror stories from long ago? No. Simply the potential price of being a Christian in a world whose leaders were trying to stamp out the message of Christ. Now that we hear Moslems and Hindus and atheists inflict similar tortures on Christ’s people, the martyrs are being remembered as witnesses to the eternal hatred of Satan for people who tried to live right.
Lament of the Faithful at the Wailing Wall, by Gustav Baumfeind
Then Mass. It proceeded like all Sunday and vigil Masses do, through the Gloria, the Epistles and Gospel, a sermon, the Creed, the Offertory. Then into the Canon and Consecration.
During the Consecration of the Mass, while I was looking at the priest holding up the host, 99 said, “Kevin! Someone is down! Look!”
Up toward the front of the church I saw several older men and a couple of women struggling to get someone up. I bolted from my pew, strode up to the people, and saw two older men, a younger man, and two middle aged women trying to get an elderly man out of the pew.
He was ashen and in serious trouble. I motioned the women out of the way, got my hands underneath the old man’s frail body, and helped the other men carry him out of the pew and out the right front side door of the church. Behind us we could hear the priest starting a prayer for the elderly man.
We put him into a wheelchair outside. I dropped the foot rests and propped his feet up in them so they wouldn’t drag on the ground. Another man wheeled him out to the street, while I walked beside them and started trying to see what was wrong with the elderly man.
I listened to the man breathe and saw he was swallowing. But his eyes were closed, and he did not answer me when I repeatedly asked him how he felt. He did not open his eyes, but at least he kept breathing. His white hair, neatly combed, kept its shape during all the struggle to get him outside to some help. He wouldn’t talk. He was in deep trouble.
The elderly man’s daughter, a woman about 50, had felt her father start to struggle with his balance and his speech. She had phoned for the paramedics on her cell phone had gone out ahead of us to flag them down.
Several paramedics rolled up, and started taking the man’s vital signs. Heartbeat? A weak 50 beats a minute. Blood pressure? 70 over 40. One paramedic started calling him, “Al! Al! How ya doin’, Al?”
No response from the old man.
A tall lanky man bounded from the street door of the church, and said, “Give me the ears.”
A paramedic handed him a stethoscope and the lanky man listened to the elderly man. “He’s breathing, and his lungs sound clear,” he said.
“He has Alzheimer’s …. he has heart problems …” the daughter intoned, matter-of-factly and in a resigned voice to the paramedics. She no doubt had been down this road before with her dad.
I stood back and let the paramedics take over. The professionals in navy blue had shown up quickly and in force. They would do what they could for Al. At this point I wasn’t going to be of help but just a bystander in the way.
As I walked back to the front side door of the church, I heard the struggle and flapping of a large pair of wings trying to lift a load. The wings prevailed against gravity, lifted off, and gave off less and less sound as they flapped skyward.
I looked up through the twilight and saw no birds. But I had heard the wings.
Was it Al’s soul winging its way to Heaven? Was it his guardian angel showing up to be his wing man?
As I walked in the church and walked down the right side aisle, I saw the facial expressions of the men and women changed for the sadder. They read my face and thought the worst.
Ironically, the priest was just finishing the Canon of the Mass. 99 told me he had stopped Mass, told the people paramedics were helping Al outside, and led the parishioners in prayers for Al’s health and his soul.
Then came the Our Father, the Agnus Dei, Communion for the people, finishing prayers, and then the closing hymn.
All I could think of was the man’s struggle for life, the sadness of the people realizing they could do little for him except pray, and the shock older people must have felt as they were getting a reminder of their imminent mortality as one of their own fell and could not get up on his own.
Did a soul wing its way to Heaven?
After Mass, we waited till the cluster around Father had subsided.
While we waited, we heard a little about who Al was. Someone told Father Al had changed meds and perhaps this caused his system some shock. She was hopeful Al would live. So were the others.
Then Father came to us because we had held back. And Father, a former military officer, had noticed me as one of the men who carried Al out of the church. He also read my face. He probably didn’t want me to startle anyone with my blunt answers.
“He ain’t gonna make it, Father,” I said, and then I started to cry. (If this makes me a softy, then I plead guilty. I hate to see decent people suffer.) I reached into my shirt pocket and pulled out a $20 bill. “Here’s some Mass money for him.”
Father was calm. He said Al was in the presence of the sacraments and in the arms of the Lord.
“I know, Father,” I replied. “A church full of people and a priest praying for you is great. If he dies shortly, he’ll be free of the Alzheimer’s disease that hammered him and his loved ones. It’s just that I hate to see someone die who didn’t hurt anyone.”
“I’ve seen accident victims, fire victims, murder and assault and rape victims,” I continued, fighting to get the words out. “I’ve assisted at autopsies. I’ve helped those I could. I know the look. I just know he’s done for.”
“I heard the flapping of wings as I came into church again,” I continued. “It was like Little Jimmy Brown.”
“You mean the Three Bells?” Father asked.
I said, “Yeah, the Three Bells.”
“In the village hidden deep in the valley
One rainy morning dark and gray
A soul winged its way to Heaven
Jimmy Brown had passed away —–“
Then the Brown Sisters would chime in harmony femininely, “Bom bom bom bom…” like bells.
“Just a lonely bell was ringing
In the little valley town
‘Twas farewell that it was singing
To our good ol’ Jimmy Brown.”
“And the little congregation
Prayed for guidance from above
Lead us not into temptation,
May his soul find the salvation,
Of Thy great eternal love.”
“It was good he was here and you had the people praying for him,” 99 told the priest. She was calm. She was thinking about Al’s eternity, not his state as a poor old man with Alzheimer’s disease. I nodded in agreement.
I said, “Father, you have a million things to do, including getting over to the hospital to help Al out or give him the Last Rites.”
He thanked us for our concerns, and our charity.
99 and Father were right. If Al was in the state of grace, he would be leaving his earthly troubles behind and would be entering into eternal life.
By now the lanky guy was with us. A little girl in blue slacks and a pink jacket was at his side. She was proud of her Daddy. He said a word or two to Father, then accompanied us. Turns out he was not only a singer in the choir loft, but a paramedic. That’s why the other paramedics knew him and gave him a stethoscope.
We walked out the street door of the church and down the steps.
As we continued talking, other people joined us. They were asking him about Al, and he was trying to be pleasant and keep up their hopes.
I had my composure back now, and thankfully some vigilance.
It was now almost dark. I looked up the street in front of the church and saw the lights of an oncoming car. While her father was talking to the others, the little girl started to dart across the street to the parking lot. She hadn’t noticed the car. The driver had not noticed the little girl, even though her jacket was pink.
I rushed out after the girl, reached out and grabbed her, and pulled her back to the curb. The car’s brakes squealed.
The lanky man thanked me. He was too relieved to yell at his girl, who was startled and silent.
The driver waved in relief and kept his car as still as he could keep it while we all walked across the street to the parking lot.
I couldn’t save Al, but I could help the little girl. We can’t win them all, but we should try.
As Christ Himself said, “You know not the time nor the hour.”
And we are all humble before the Throne of God.
As for All Souls, the Italians have a saying, “When the game is over, the king and the pawns go into the same box.”
Is this a sign of despair? No. The dust, and the box refer only to our imperfect earthly bodies. Our souls are immortal. There is always hope, if we have tried to live our lives in a way pleasing to God.
Why do we pray for the dead?
Because God commands us to.
We find in the Book of Maccabees 2-12:43-46 the story of how Judas Maccabee took up an offering to pray for the souls of his dead soldiers so their sins would be forgiven. The scriptural writer notes that if they had gone to Heaven right away, there would be no need for prayer, and if they had gone to Hell, no amount of prayer was going to get them out.
The New Testament and early Church history have ample proof the early Christians believed in Purgatory because the Church Fathers taught it.
St. Peter in 1 Peter 3:19 says, “It was in the spirit also that He went to preach to the spirits in prison.” Jesus was talking to people who had died, but were neither in Heaven or Hell. Peter and virtually every other pope for the first three centuries of the Church’s existence died a martyr.
St. Paul, in 1 Corinthians 3:11-15 says, “No one can lay a foundation other than the one that has been laid, namely Jesus Christ. If different ones build on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, or straw, the work of each will be made clear. The Day will disclose it. That day will make its appearance with fire, and fire will test the quality of each man’s work. If the building a man has raised on this foundation (Christianity) still stands, he will receive his recompense; if a man’s building burns, he will suffer loss. He himself will be saved, but only as one fleeing through fire.”
St. John in 1 John 5:17 says “True, all wrongdoing is sin, but not all sin is deadly.” John was the only Apostle not to die a martyr. But then, he was the only Apostle present on Calvary when Christ died for our sins on the Cross.
These New Testament readings all point to people not purified enough to enter Heaven, but certainly not evil enough or uncaring enough to deserve Hell. That, folks, is most of us. Most sins are sins of falling short, not sins of plotting to prey upon others.
Why do we pray for the dead?
Because it’s in our nature.
Prehistoric man and our Native American Indians worked hard, and invented tools that would save them labor. They loved art, and expressed it to the limits of their abilities.
They loved their spouses, their children, their friends.
They buried their dead with respect.
They worshiped God to the limits of their abilities.
Despite their primitive natures, they were thinking creatures, whom God made in His image and likeness, and infused with souls.
They understood there was an afterlife and there was something greater than themselves. They erred in worshiping Nature, or the Sun, the creation, rather than God the Creator, but they were much too intelligent to worship themselves.
Self-worship is the lunacy of too many people today who think they are the center of their own universe. Those who worship themselves have an idiot for a deity.
Why do we pray for the dead?
Because we all need help, we benefit from praying, and we benefit from being prayed for.
History records eyewitnesses of only two people going bodily into Heaven. The Virgin Mary, of course, and Elijah the prophet, in his fiery chariot. Almost nobody gets that kind of curbside service to the Pearly Gates! So those of us who have to climb or hitchhike or low-crawl to Heaven need all the help we can get.
The early Christians held Masses in the Catacombs – the tunnels under Rome – and used the coffins of the dead for altars. The early Christians’ graffiti in the Catacombs refer constantly to prayers for the dead.
St. Monica asked her son St. Augustine to say Masses for her soul when she died. Augustine was a long-time lecher who repented, and became one of the greatest philosophers of the Church. Monica prayed long and hard for him to pull his life out of the sewer … showing the power of a mother’s prayers.
The great and holy people throughout history asked for the prayers of others and the prayers of those in Heaven. Even the Apostle Paul and Joan of Arc asked for these prayers. The Bible records Paul’s requests, and the national archives of France record Joan’s requests.
Jeanne D’Arc by Albert Lynch
Bear in mind Joan of Arc was able to see and embrace St. Catherine and St. Margaret, who had been martyred by beheading in the Middle East many years before she lived. Bear in mind Joan of Arc saw Michael the Archangel. And bear in mind St. Paul saw Our Lord Himself!
Joan of Arc, when she was on trial for her life, told the evil judges that the saints told her she would be rewarded in Heaven, and this made her able to bear her trials.
One of the evil judges asked Joan if she was in the state of grace (“saved,” for our Protestant readers). This was a trap. If she said yes, she was guilty of presumption and pride. If she said no, she was confessing to being an evil person.
One of the judges, who had a conscience, cried out, “It is a terrible question! Joan, you don’t have to answer!”
But Joan did answer. “If I am in the state of grace, may God keep me there. If I am not in the state of grace, may God put me there.”
Joan could barely read and write, but she could show courage and judgment.
She also showed concern for the dying, even the English soldiers her men mortally wounded. She had to attack them and beat them as invaders, but she sat with them as well as with her own men who were on the verge of death after a battle, and had the Last Rites given to them.
Joan also had self-control. Joan wanted to marry, and she had France’s bravest men under her command. She had a crush on one of her officers, the Duke D’Alençon, who was married. But she behaved herself. She even was kind enough to tell the Duke’s wife it had been revealed to her (Joan) he would come home to her (his wife) safe from the wars. This set the Duke’s wife’s heart at ease, for she had been worrying hard about him. Joan set a great example in personal morality as well as courage, wisdom, and charity.
D’Alençon and Joan’s other surviving officers testified to these and other things about Joan when Pope Callistus III, at the request of Joan’s mother and the Inquisition officer of France, ordered a trial of rehabilitation to determine if Joan’s name should be cleared. (The Inquisition had examined and endorsed Joan, and had tried unsuccessfully to block the English from executing Joan.) The officials cleared Joan’s name, declared her conviction a fraud based on political treachery, and convicted Bishop Cauchon, who spearheaded her conviction and execution, of a number of offenses.
Back to my point. Joan ran an army and yet still made time to pray for the dead and dying.
99 says a saint whose work she once read said, “Every soul has a price. If someone is unwilling to pay for his own soul, someone else must buy it for him.”
Cloistered nuns pray for souls to turn to God … when no one else will. The wicked, the sinful … and those who have lost all hope especially benefit from the nuns’ work … when they turn to God.
Joy is meant to be shared. So are worry and sorrow. The burden of worry and the burden of sorrow becomes lighter if there are more people to carry it. And helping others carry the burden of worry or the burden of sorrow helps you keep your mind off of troubles of your own. For in helping others, you are building your own character and winning a measure of mercy from God for your own sins.
Reach out to those who ask for your help…. and those who need your help but don’t ask for it … in their times of trouble. Help them and pray for them … one of the greatest acts you can do is selflessly seek the help of God for those who truly need His help. You’re not addressing God here like a little kid addresses Santa Claus before Christmas … you’re being a person of good will taking time out from your own concerns to help a brother or sister who could use some help.
I truly believe that God hears and answers the prayers of those who ask favors, not for themselves, but for someone else who is in need. It must touch even His mighty heart to see one of His children in need, and seeing His other children pleading with Him with all their hearts to help His daughter or son in need.
We pray for the repose of our loved ones’ souls. We pray for the loved ones of the dead, so they will have the strength to live their lives in a way that would make those who went before them proud of them. We pray for ourselves, so that we might have the will to live life the way God wants us to live it.
For all of you, regardless of your denomination, as you travel to your eternal reward, may the road rise to greet you and may the wind always be at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face, and may God hold you in the palm of His hand. May you make it safely into Heaven long before the Devil knows you’ve passed on.
May God bless you all, every day, as long as you shall live.
SHERLOCK JUSTICE
WE CAN SHOW YOU HOW TO BE YOUR OWN DETECTIVE.
