[quote] It is therefore a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from sins. (2 Maccabees 12:43-46)[/quote]
One of the (many!) beautiful things about Catholicism is our belief that we are made by a loving God to know, love and serve Him in this world and to be happy forever with Him in the next. It fills our lives with so much hope and meaning. It is the impetus for living a good life and dying a good death.
Purgatory
As Catholics we believe that those who go to heaven do not necessarily go there straight away. Even for those who have died in friendship with God – in a ‘state of grace’ – there may still be a need to purify the soul before it is worthy to be in God’s presence. Saint Catherine of Genoa, who was granted mystical experiences of Purgatory, said that at death the soul momentarily sees the state that it is really in and will actually fling itself into Purgatory until it has atoned for any remaining stains of sin. God waits with open arms for the purified soul.
St Catherine frequently uses the image of the soul being covered in rust and in need of purification by fire. This ‘fire’ of purgatory, as Pope Benedict XVI has pointed out, was an interior fire – an inner fire – rather than an exterior fire such “as a scene in the bowels of the earth”:
“The soul is aware of the immense love and perfect justice of God and consequently suffers for having failed to respond in a correct and perfect way to this love; and love for God itself becomes a flame, love itself cleanses it from the residue of sin.” (Wednesday Audience 12/01/2011.)
What is Purgatory like for the souls? St Catherine tells us that:
“They endure a pain so extreme that no tongue can be found to tell it, nor could the mind understand its least pang if God by special grace did not shew so much. Which least pang God of His grace shewed to this Soul, but with her tongue she cannot say what it is.” (Catherine of Genoa, Chapter 2, Treatise on Purgatory.)
The souls in Purgatory cannot help themselves; they rely on our charity – our prayers and sacrifices, our visits to cemeteries – to speed up their entrance into Heaven. Mass offerings are particularly efficacious. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church points out, prayers for the dead have been part of Church practice since Apostolic times. (You can find references to Purgatory in Mt 5:25-26; 12:32; Luke 12:58, 1 Cor 3:12-15; 2 Tim 1:15-18; Heb 12: 6-11, 14, 23; and Rev 21:27.)
Desecration of Graves and Exorcism
I visited a cemetery on All Souls day this month, and there was, sadly, evidence of many a recently desecrated grave. It was a mess. I later came across an article where exorcists warned Catholics to steer well clear of Halloween. At a meeting of over 300 exorcists in Rome in October, Fr Aldo Buonaiuto, a member of the International Association of Exorcists (a group that is formally recognised by the Vatican), said that there was “nothing innocent or fun” about Halloween, and that, in fact, “it is the antechamber to something much more dangerous.”
[quote] The organisation’s emergency number receives hundreds of calls over this period, around 40 a day, especially from parents who fear that their child has been drawn into the Occult, [Fr Aldo] said. “There are always more evil rituals, animal sacrifices, desecrations of cemeteries and thefts of sacred bones at the time of the 31 October.”
Participating in Halloween is “like an initiation into the Occult”, he said. “For the sects it is the best time of year to recruit new members. From here the door to the devil can be opened. For this reason its necessary for us to speak out and not play down the danger.” (Source) [/quote]
The Halloween Culture
While it might be becoming trendy in the side of the world to ‘celebrate’ Halloween, and certainly in North America and parts of Europe it has become part of their culture, I’d rather err on the side of the exorcists on this one. They know their stuff. They’ve seen demonic possession first hand. They know that getting involved with occult practices doesn’t just happen: it begins when people open themselves up to seemingly innocent fun and games (like ouija boards and New Age practices) and it grows from there.
In fact, the more I think about it, the more that Halloween strikes me as being a celebration of the culture of death. Compare it to the celebration of All Saints Day and All Souls Day that follow. These days represent and celebrate life: eternal life. The Church Militant (or Pilgrim Church) on Earth, praying for the Church Suffering in Purgatory, and thanking God for the Church Triumphant in Heaven, and hoping and praying that we will one day join them. Catholics think about death a great deal at this time, but not in a weird way where the focus is on blood and guts and zombies and vampires.
Fr Aldo suggests that Catholics should celebrate ‘Holyween’ rather than ‘Halloween’, and on all Hallows Eve we should place a light or an image of the saints at our doors or windows to celebrate their sanctity and the triumph of good over evil.
This is something to consider for October 31 next year. Meanwhile, for the remainder of November, the month dedicated to the Holy Souls, in our charity let’s keep up the prayers and sacrifices and Masses for those who’ve gone before us. May they rest in peace.
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