TEXT: Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed (All Souls Day), November 2, 2025
November 2, 2025 Father De Celles Homily
Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed (All Souls Day)
November 2, 2025
Homily by Fr. John De Celles
St. Raymond of Peñafort Catholic Church
Springfield, VA
Today and yesterday, we celebrate the two great feasts
expressive of the mystery of the Church known as the “Communion of Saints”:
the Feasts of All Saints and All Souls.
Still, we believe that in some mysterious way every Mass throughout the year
celebrates this mystery as we gather not only as those present here,
or even just those in other places throughout the world,
but also the members of the Church in glory—all the Saints in heaven
and of the Church in purification (all the souls in Purgatory).
Today we remember in a special way All the Souls in Purgatory.
Purgatory is confusing to a lot of Catholics.
On the one hand, some fear Purgatory
as a place of terrible torture and despair, like a prison.
On the other hand, others simply ignore or reject the teaching all together,
thinking of it as the result of some early pagan superstition
or medieval preoccupation with sin and punishment.
But Purgatory is none of these things.
First of all, it’s not the result of pagan superstition or medieval fears,
but of Biblical faith.
For example, the second book of the Maccabees tells us
that Judas Maccabees,
two centuries before the birth of Jesus, prayed for the dead,
“Beseeching that the sin which had been committed
might be wholly blotted out.”
It goes on to tell us,
“To pray for the dead…was a holy and pious [thing].”
The thing is, if the souls of the dead who die in sin are in heaven,
they have no need of prayers,
and if they are in hell the prayers would be useless.
So this passage from 2nd Maccabees reflects the ancient Jewish belief
in a third place, or state, or whatever you want to call it,
where the souls of the dead who die in sin can go and be purified so
they can still go from there to heaven
—a place where prayers for them will make a difference.
This is what we Christians have, for centuries, called “Purgatory,”
taking the ancient Jewish tradition, handed down by Christ to His Church
and passed down to us throughout the centuries
in the New Testament and in the writings of the great Fathers of the Church,
like St. Clement of Rome, the third pope, in the 1st century;
St. Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian and Origen in the 2nd century;
St. John Chrystostym and St. Basil the Great in 4th century;
and, of course, the greatest patristic father, St. Augustine of Hippo,
and the great pope of the 6th century, St. Gregory the Great.
But while St. Paul and some of the fathers, like Augustine and Gregory,
spoke of the “purgatorial fire,” that fire is not meant to torture the souls.
Rather, the Church has taught that the pain of purgatory
can be understood in at least three ways.
First, when the Church speaks of the fire of purgatory,
while it is understood in part as temporal punishment for sins,
it also reflects one of the main reasons for punishment:
punishment meant to be medicinal,
to heal and repair, to change for the better.
So, the fire of purgatory carries the sense of a purifying or cleansing fire
that burns away our attachment to or infection with sin
much like fire has been used in ages past to burn away
the germs of the plague or leprosy, or to cauterize a wound.
Second, the pain of purgatory is like the pain associated with any change.
When we die, we have to change from being attached to the things of this world;
we have to let go of our bad habits and sinfulness.
This kind of change is hard: Like an athlete getting himself into shape,
the practice and exercising are painful;
or like giving up some bad habit such as smoking or overeating
can be agonizing.
The third way of understanding the pain of purgatory
is primarily as the pain of loss.
In purgatory the souls are keenly aware that they are so close
and yet still deprived from the perfect and complete happiness of heaven.
Finally, there’s the pain of a perfect realization of every single sin
that they committed in life
—and the terrible pain that these sins have caused to God
and to their neighbor.
This pain, though, does not lead to despair, as some think,
but to intense spiritual joy.
Like the athlete preparing for the contest who is rewarded by the practice itself and the self betterment,
the soul in purgatory experiences the joy
of becoming more and more like God created him to be.
Also, there is joy found in the fact that the souls
are absolutely sure of their salvation;
they know that they will soon live forever with God.
So, as St. Catherine of Genoa wrote:
“I do not believe it would be possible
to find any joy comparable to that of a soul in Purgatory,
except the joy of the Blessed in Paradise.
For every sight, however little, that can be gained of God
exceeds every pain and every joy
that man can conceive without it.”
To understand Purgatory is difficult,
but perhaps we can begin with a key phrase from St. John’s
Book of Revelation: “[N]othing unclean will enter [heaven].”
This text makes sense because God is the all-perfect one,
so there can’t be even the slightest imperfection in heaven.
Think about this.
Let’s take two people, Pope Benedict XVI
and a common ordinary sinner like, say, me.
The spiritual differences between him and me are in many ways
like the differences between day and night.
He was holy, so unattached to things of this world and
to even the most venial and small sins.
I on the other hand–although I hope I’m not the worst sinner in the world
–am still very much attached to things,
and I commit venial sins all the time: I’m impatient, irascible, prideful.
So, when Pope Benedict died,
it seemed to me that he was extremely ready to enter heaven.
He indeed seemed to have nothing unclean about him,
like a bright lamp shining the light of Christ
in some of the darkest corners of the earth.
But if I were to die today, there’s no way that I would even try to argue
that I am as pure and clean in the eyes of God as he was.
Any shine about me is dulled and dimmed by
my imperfections and sins.
So, it seems that even though I may never do anything seriously evil,
even if I’m just a common venial sinner,
according to St. John’s teaching, I’m in big trouble if I die today
because he says, “[N]othing unclean will enter [heaven].”
But on the other hand, Jesus tells us in today’s Gospel,
“I will not reject anyone who comes to me.”
If both of these two concepts are true, I’m not in big trouble,
because somehow between death and heaven,
I can be transformed and become perfectly purified.
As St. Paul says elsewhere, somehow I “will be saved, but only as through fire.”
Purified like gold in a fire.
The teaching on Purgatory, then,
is essentially a teaching reflecting the great mercy of God.
God could simply say that anyone not perfectly living out His will
and free from all inordinate attachments to the world
cannot enter into heaven.
So, Pope Benedict perhaps could go to heaven,
but many of us in this room would never have a chance.
But that’s not God’s way: He is Our Father who loves us so much that,
unless we cut ourselves off from Him by an act of unrepented grave sin,
He will bring us to His heavenly banquet.
Like a loving Father, He first washes us–purifies us—
before we sit down with the family for the heavenly banquet.
___
Some say that purgatory is irrelevant or unimportant to us.
And some would say that a loving God would never make us go through all this.
But the thing is, this is exactly what a loving God would do:
He would extend His perfect love
even to those who have loved Him imperfectly.
And so we come to see that purgatory
is of great relevance and importance to us.
First of all, it can be a tremendous source of hope and consolation.
For example, I know people–and you probably do too—
who can’t fathom how they could ever get to heaven
given the terrible sins they know or think they’ve committed.
The idea of purgatory makes sense to them
and gives them hope that God really can love them
and that heaven is in their reach.
Or think of the families who mourn their departed family members.
So often–especially as they try to deal with the immediate grief
that comes with death,
they speak about the dead as if they were living saints
who went straight to heaven.
But when the grief of loss subsides, often the reality overcomes them
that their mother or father or spouse or child
wasn’t really as perfect as the eulogies said.
Or they realize that they themselves were somehow negligent
in showing their love for them when they were alive
–and guilt understandably overwhelms them.
Purgatory is a perspective on God’s love that gives them hope.
It makes it possible to understand
that not only people like Pope Benedict can go to heaven,
but that even a common sinner like you or me,
our moms and dads, brothers and sisters,
and sons and daughters,
can also go to heaven.
And it makes it possible to keep giving to them after they’ve gone
by giving our love through our constant prayers for them.
This is the greatest reason purgatory is relevant and important to each of us:
They need our prayers!
If the souls in Purgatory are our brothers and sisters,
we must love them enough to pray for them
–to help them during their purification.
Because, in spite of the joy of Purgatory, there is real pain there!
That’s why just as heaven is sometimes called the “Church triumphant,”
purgatory is called the “Church suffering.”
How sad it is that so many Catholics hesitate to pray for their beloved dead.
Some think it dishonors the dead to assume that they’re in Purgatory.
And some think their loved one was too holy—they simply have to be in heaven.
But if they were that holy then they would be the first to tell us to pray for them.
For example, take St. Monica, the mother of the great St. Augustine,
who told him on her death bed in the year 387:
“Lay this body anywhere, let not the care for it trouble you at all.
This only I ask, that you will remember me
at the Lord’s altar, wherever you be.”
Or as St. Teresa of Avila, the great mystic and doctor of the Church,
told her followers on her deathbed 1200 years later:
“Don’t let them call me a saint when I’ve died
—then they won’t pray for me!”
If we love them, we must pray for the dead.
That’s what we do for people we love. We prayed for them in life, and
we have to pray for them in death.
Because prayer is an act of love
—it is the greatest act of love we can do for someone,
because it asks God who is all powerful to help them.
Now, God doesn’t need our prayers—even for the living.
He knows what everyone needs before we ask,
and He loves them even more than we do.
The thing is, He wants us to pray for them because He wants us to love them
and show that love by our actions—our prayers.
He wants us to bring Him into that love, to recognize His love and power,
and, in the end, to recognize all things depend on His love.
And the greatest of prayers we can offer for them is the Mass
because the Mass is simultaneously
the actual re-presentation of the great prayer of Christ on His Cross
and the prayer of the Resurrected Christ at the right hand of the Father.
And to this perfect prayer, Christ unites and perfects the prayers of His Church.
So, at this Mass of All Souls Day—as at every Mass—
let us join in the prayer of the whole Church of Christ
–the pilgrim Church on earth,
the glorified Church in heaven
and the Church being purified in purgatory
–as it becomes the perfect worship of God the Father
through Christ in the Holy Spirit,
and the perfect prayer for both the living and the dead.
Here, our prayers of intercession become prayers of thanksgiving
as we rejoice in confidence that although
“[N]othing unclean will enter [heaven],”
the merciful Jesus also promises us,
“I will not reject anyone who comes to me.”
Eternal rest grant unto them O Lord,
…and let perpetual light shine upon them.
May the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God
…rest in peace. Amen.