Download Requiem Josie Pickard, Homily

Homily - The Souls in Purgatory
I don’t know if any of you have had the opportunity to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land.
If you have then you will know how such an experience helps us to appreciate the stories
and imagery that Jesus uses in his teaching.
During one such pilgrimage I remember how our small party had alighted from the coach
half way up a hillside to take in the view across the narrow valley.
On the sloping hillside opposite a shepherd was leading his flock – a mixture of sheep and
goats. They followed where he went in twos and threes, all mixed up together.
Then the shepherd reached a certain point when he seemed to know that it was right to
divide the animals one from the other, group from group.
He stood in the middle of the track and as the animals reached him they went to one or the
other side of him, veering off to right and left.
To watch happening before our very eyes what we had often heard or read about was quite
striking.
Even more remarkable was the fact that these animals seemed to know instinctively which
side they should go, where they belonged. The shepherd simply stood before them, and to
right and left of him they went. It was as though they somehow shared his judgement of their
nature, their character. The goats seemed to know to go left of him, and the sheep knew to
go to his right.
In the scene of the Last Judgement as depicted by Jesus, the assembled throng divide
themselves from one another - like sheep and the goats - to go to their proper place: the place
they have prepared themselves for by the character of their lives here on earth.
Those who have lived lives of generosity and compassion for their fellows are commended
for their virtue and assured that in the poor and needy they had served the Lord himself:
Come, take possession of the kingdom prepared for you since the foundation of the world.
Those who have been concerned only with their own comfort and ease, who neglected their
brothers and sisters in their distress, had in fact turned away from the Lord – and so are
bidden to depart his presence.
But in truth they each know within themselves where they belong – at home with God and
the blessed ones of heaven, or distanced from them by a great gulf of selfishness.
In the book of Wisdom we hear again of the fate of those who have been faithful in their
love of God and of God’s creatures:
The souls of the virtuous are in the hands of God…their hope rich with immortality. God has
put them to the test, tested them like Gold in a furnace. When the time comes for his
visitation they will shine out, as sparks run through the stubble. Those who trust in God will
understand the truth, those who are faithful will live with him in love. Grace and mercy
await them.
In his great poem, The Dream of Gerontius, John Henry Cardinal Newman narrates a
conversation between the lately dead Gerontius and his Guardian Angel. The exchange takes
place as this faithful Christian soul approaches the judgement seat of God where his eternal
future will be designated in accordance with the manner of his life on earth.
The Angel says:
Thy judgement now is near, for we are come into the veiled presence of our God.
Gerontius asks:
Dear Angel, say, why have I no fear at meeting Him. Along my earthly life, the thought of
death and judgment was to me most terrible. I had it aye before me, and I saw the Judge
severe even in the crucifix.
Now that the hour is come, my fear is fled; and at this balance of my destiny, now close upon
me, I can forward look with a serenest joy.
The Angel responds:
It is because then thou didst fear, that now thou dost not fear…because already in thy soul
the judgement has begun…so now, ere thou comest to the Throne a presage falls upon thee,
as a ray, straight from the Judge, expressive of thy lot. That calm and joy uprising in thy
soul is first fruit to thee of thy recompense, and heaven begun.
We are reassured by such teachings that anyone who lives as best they can according to the
Gospel of Christ in the family of the church founded by Jesus himself - who lives a life
characterised by faith, hope and charity - will hear those lovely words of Jesus spoken in
another parable: Come, good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of your Lord.
Certainly that is what we pray will be our experience.
But our inside, personal, knowledge of human frailty, of our own weaknesses and
shortcomings also behove us to pray that, if there be anything that remains within his heart
which might in some way prevent his knowing the Lord’s joy to the full, that obstacle will
be removed by God’s grace.
Whether there be such a barrier of sin or not, in all likelihood when we come into God’s
holy presence we will be filled with a sense of unworthiness and inadequacy which will
make us feel as though we should take ourselves away. In Newman’s poem, the Guardian
Angel of Gerontius describes that well:
When thou seest thy Judge, the sight of Him will kindle in thy heart all tender, gracious,
reverential thought. Thou wilt be sick with love, and yearn for him…
But there is a pleading in his pensive eyes will pierce thee to the quick and trouble thee. And
thou wilt hate and loathe thyself, for though now sinless thou wilt feel that thou hast sinned
as never thou didst feel; and wilt desire to slink away and hide thee from his sight. And yet
wilt have a longing aye to dwell within the beauty of his countenance.
And these two pains, so counter and so keen – thy longing for him, and the shame of self at
thought of seeing him, will be thy veriest, sharpest purgatory.
When we pray for the faithful departed our desire is that this sense of shame, unworthiness
and inadequacy will be swiftly overcome by an overwhelming sense of God’s
understanding, compassionate love, and that we will, as soon as maybe, enter with
confidence into God’s embrace, as a little child rests trustingly in the arms of a fond and
doting parent.
Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them.
May they rest in peace. Amen.