There will arise the Son of Justice with His healing rays...
I wasn't much of a morning person when I was in college at WashU. In fact, I chose all of my Tuesday-Thursday classes such that they started well after the sunrise: my earliest class was at 1pm. Because of this, I never saw the sunrise. In fact, my first memory of the sunrise was when, as a kind of rite-of-passage (I had heard that, before I graduated, I had to watch the sunrise from Brookings Hall), I joined a few of my classmates during graduation week and, yeah, with a little bit of alcohol in my system from the night before, welcomed the new day and the rising sun.
The great philosopher-theologian, Peter Kreeft, theorizes that, in the after-life and at the End of Time, there will be a couple reactions to the coming of Jesus, who Himself is the Rising Son, dawning in the East. On the one hand, there will be those who welcome the Son, like those romantics and poets who delight in the new warmth and the light that dispels the night's darkness. "At last!" they will say. On the other hand, there will be those who, like those fraternity brothers who were on a bender the night before, close the blinds at first light and say, "Dear God, it's bright!" And prefer the darkness.
For me, it was not as though I was the frat boy, but I was rather indifferent until that morning when I saw the sunrise. Sure, I knew it happened every day, but I never really attended to it. I was preoccupied with other things; my own life; sleeping; whatever. I had no aversion to it, but really: when you drive to work in the morning in these autumn and winter months, how often do you look with meandering, contemplative gaze?
In the spiritual life, I think many of us struggle with this bias: we know Jesus is there, but to attend to Him-- that is something we overlook precisely because He is always there ... and we are busy.
The great Italitna, Dante Alighieri, a literary figure that some argue is as important as Shakespeare, wrote about the afterlife in his classic: The Divine Comedy. In this work he wrote about those who welcomed the Son and are in heaven, about those who spurned the Son and are in hell, and about a third kind: those who had a place in their heart for the Son, but were oftentimes preoccupied with other earthly pursuits. Those are in purgatory.
It is for these that we pray for when we pray for the dead. Those in purgatory will make it into heaven (they cannot go to hell), but they do have to be cleansed and freed from those attachments and effects of sin that they need to pay back to God in His justice. It is, as CS Lewis (I believe) once wrote: a man has an invitation to a party at a mansion. Along the way, the man is splashed with mud. He arrives at the mansion and is greeted by the butler. The man, embarrassed, says, "Sir, may I first be cleansed before I greet the master of this house?" In heaven, everything is perfect. And the soul that has not been perfected in this life-- and there is enough grace in just one Holy Communion to make it so!-- must be perfected in Purgatory.
Dante's Divine Comedy, I believe, not only gives a great depiction of purgatory, but it can also spur us on to more holy living here so that, at the end of our earthly lives, we may avoid that place and find ourselves going directly to heaven. That said, let's divine into Dante's "Purgatorio."
There are seven levels that Dante notes, each one dealing with a deadly sin. When he writes about these levels, he starts from that which is closest to hell and ascends upward to that which is closest to heaven. I will take us in the opposite order and go from the closest to heaven, downwards.
As I do this, you will see 1) what brought a person there; 2) what struggle they must endure; and 3) the growth they must have before ascending to heaven. I hope that this will enlighten us about our sins, but also inspire us to take certain penitential measures so that we can ascend now.
The first level, closest to heaven, belongs to those who struggled with lust. That may surprise you -- we often think that that is the level closest to hell. But Dante notes that those who struggled with lust had love in their hearts, but it was twisted or misguided -- they were so close to saying after Christ "This is my body, given for you," but instead focused on the body alone as object, not gift. Dante notes that these will have to pass through fire -- specifically, the fire of the Holy Spirit, whom they had not embraced fully in this life.
The second level belongs to those who were gluttonous. They will be forced to fast. When allowed to eat and drink, those staples will not satisfy them and they will discover what they knew, deep down, here on earth: that food and drink are not enough: "One cannot live on bread alone." So they fast.
The third level is populated by the greedy. They endure being stretched, face down, upon the ground. They who were obsessed with earthly goods rarely looked up to the real treasures of heaven. Forced to look down upon the earth, they will realize that "Where you heart was, there was your treasure as well" and will start to long to look upwards ... if for a moment... someday....
The fourth level is of the slothful and lazy. They are forced to run (dear God!) so as to make up for their idleness, which was a devil's workshop.
The fifth level is the wrathful. They must find their way through a fear-inducing black cloud of smoke. Their emotions will be in turmoil and they must learn to do what they did not do here on earth: to learn how to govern their emotions and "calm the storm."
The sixth level is for the envious and jealous. They must wear sackcloth that itches their skin and their eyes are sowed shut with wire. They who were sad in having not must learn that giving away increases joy and not detracts from it; as they are blind, they will realize that everything is gift and must learn to rejoice in "every good gift that comes from above."
The seventh and final level, the closest to hell (whose gates say "Abandon all hope"), is reserved for the prideful. They are burdened by and must carry heavy, large rocks while praying the Our Father, especially attentive to the words: "Thy Will be done."
Within this final level are those who repented at the last hour, but who did not attend to their spiritual life in their earthy days. They delayed and oftentimes neglected the purification they could have gone through in this life -- and now they must go through it now. Only, they do not have access to the grace of the Eucharist as you and I have.
To complete this teaching on Purgatory, two things are worthy of note.
First, those who are in the lower levels must complete not only that level, but also the ones above it. So, for example, the wrathful must go through the black cloud, but also the running for the slothful, and the fires of the lustful, etc. The prideful must go through them all. This is because the lower levels-- like pride-- will also have struggled with greed and lust. The deeper the illness, the more severe the remedy.
Second, in purgatory, there are times of dark, and there are times of sunlight. And the ascending of souls from the lower to the higher can only happen in the light of the sun. "The Son of Justice comes with His healing rays."
You see, my friends, I tell you this because we don't really want Justice in this life or the next. We want mercy. And it is being offered to you right now. Go to confession. Receive the Eucharist worthily. Do penance for your sins -- which means not only being sorry, but also making amends.
I tell you this, too, because this morning is a kind of pre-announcement of Advent. Amazingly, we are only two weeks away from Advent! And what do we mean when we use that word, Advent? It comes from the Latin, ad + venio, meaning: to come towards. Advent literally means Jesus is coming towards us. Next week, we celebrate Christ the King and the theme will be about Jesus coming as King at the End of Time, wrathful of the evil, meting out justice according to our deeds.
But then we will begin the Season of Advent, wherein our Lord comes as an innocent, safe, inviting babe.
And you get to choose which one you will meet: the merciful or the just.
But for those who delay, there comes the purgation.
Let's prepare for Christ's coming-- whether at the end of time, or at Christmas, or at our death-- by truly repenting, doing penance, and attending to the Son's healing rays.
+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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