ALL SOULS DAY

Tuesday 2 November 2021

Saint Uriel’s, Sea Girt, N.J.

The commemoration of All Faithful Departed on All Souls Day is part and parcel of the Church’s year-round practice of praying for the dead. Even though intercession for the departed has been integral to Catholic worship since as early as the second century, it was restored to the Episcopal Church’s Prayer Book only in 1979. Before that, official Anglican liturgy had been under the influence of a theology associated with the sixteenth century Protestant Reformation, which condemned prayers for the dead. In virtue of the all-sufficiency of Christ’s merits, combined with justification through faith alone, this theology held that those who died in a state of grace went straight to heaven, nonstop, no layovers, no changing planes. On the other hand, those who died without faith in Christ effectively landed on the square marked “Go to hell; go straight to hell; do not pass Go; do not collect $200.”

It followed that prayers for the departed were unnecessary for those in heaven; and futile for those in hell. It was a harsh doctrine. Since it made heaven contingent upon explicit faith in Christ in this life, it effectively consigned to eternal punishment all members of other religions as well as honest nonbelievers. And it was little comfort to those who’d lost loved ones whose faith and works in this life seemed, well, ambiguous.

But the vast majority of us are neither perfect saints nor totally depraved sinners. We try to live good lives according to certain guiding principles. Yet we all have our character flaws, imperfections, inconsistencies, and hypocrisies. We may come to Church and find our faith a great help and comfort—indeed something totally worthwhile—yet we often fail to practice what we preach or live up to our highest ideals. We’re on the way, but not quite there: called to be saints, yet in this life neither completely good nor completely bad.

In other words, when we die, most of us are fit for neither heaven nor hell. Now, I do believe in hell; I’m not a Universalist. The Church’s teaching, as I understand it, is that it’s possible in this life to completely reject God and everything that God stands for. The dignity and freedom of the human person is such that God respects our choices; and the consequence of the human decision to reject God is an eternity spent apart from God; and that is hell. I once explained this to some atheist friends; and they said, “Well that doesn’t sound so bad.” But on the contrary, a worse fate cannot be imagined. God created us to find fulfillment in union with him; an eternity spent apart from God represents the ultimate frustration of all human potential and aspiration.

Still, it’s possible to believe in hell but also to believe that few people actually end up there. Hell must exist for the likes of Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot. But I’d like to think that comparatively few people choose to make good their evil and evil their good in such explicitly Faustian terms as to merit everlasting damnation. 

At the same time, when we die, few if any of us are ready for heaven. Our sins and imperfections are such that we couldn’t bear the glory of God’s divine perfection. So, between going straight to heaven and straight to hell, there must be a third way; and the Church’s name for that third way is Purgatory.

An analogy from the world of criminal justice may be helpful here. In the past twenty years or so, a new approach to the prevention and correction of wrongdoing has gained currency, which goes by the name of “restorative justice,” or “restorative practices.” In the past, civic communities tended to respond to crimes and other transgressions with either vengeful retribution at one extreme or permissive leniency at the opposite extreme. But neither of those approaches proved particularly effective. 

Restorative justice aims at a third way. Punishments are made to fit the crime; for example, a teenager caught doing drugs is required to do community service at a rehab clinic. Those who’ve committed violent crimes are brought into dialogue with their victims and their families, so that they can begin to understand the consequences of their actions. Throughout, the aim is to re-educate and rehabilitate; to heal wounds; to repair the tears in the fabric of community. Occasionally, it doesn’t work; some people are so damaged that the only thing to do is lock them up and throw away the key. But in many more cases, it does work. In my own native Northern Ireland, for example, such techniques have been helpful in reintegrating former terrorists on both sides of the conflict into the community's life.

Now, to switch back to theology, Purgatory represents the ultimate divine restorative justice. If the doctrine that sinners go straight to hell represents vengeful retribution, and the doctrine that we all go straight to heaven represents permissive leniency, then the doctrine of Purgatory represents the third way, the way of restoration. 

In this life, the divine restorative justice is already at work on us, especially in the Sacraments, worship, and fellowship of the Church. After death, the divine restorative justice continues to work with even greater effect. We come to see ourselves as we truly are. Our wounds are healed; our broken relationships mended. This doctrine does not deny the grace of Christ but rather gives it full expression. Here the Holy Spirit restores us and makes us new, so that we finally become the people that God created us to be.

In praying for the dead, we not only remember fondly those near and dear to us, but we also take our place as participants in the cosmic drama of redemption. That’s our privilege and duty as members of the Body of Christ. We pray not only for those whom we love but see no longer, but for all the souls of the faithful departed, and especially for those who have no one to pray for them. (We have the additional comfort of knowing that the members of the Church on earth will pray for us after we've gone on before them.) In this way, we fulfill our responsibilities as a community composed of all nations and peoples, being made new by the working of divine grace both in this life and in the life to come.