COULD GOD have permitted the scandals besieging the Catholic Church these days so as to humble its lazy, arrogant, erring shepherds? Before I go on, let me declare my conviction that the Church should never be judged by wolves in sheep’s clothing in her ranks. The Church is true, albeit her image marred by a few, definitely not majority, of its priests.
The sex scandals are just one aspect of the trials facing the Church.
Here in the Philippines, with denizens largely Catholic and deeply so, there has been no shortage of priests so lazy as to blabber Sunday sermons beyond the catechetical basics many were taught in elementary days. Some, overcome by want for appreciation, give homilies akin to gay bar stand-up comedy performances. You remember the jokes, never anything the Church teaches or the Bible says.
Others confuse. In Sunday Mass I last attended, a senior priest preached about God’s mercy, taught as God’s greatest attribute. This priest recalled how traditionally, the Church puts God’s mercy in tandem with Divine justice. “God is just and merciful,” he quoted tradition. Then he watered this down, underscored his own formula, saying that the conjunction “and” should be removed to form the phrase “just merciful.” In effect, he abolished hell and purgatory.
Another priest I encountered as guest in a mall Sunday Mass had a different tack. He recalled how a parish priest in the US, where he had once assisted, did away with the Sacrament of Reconciliation as being against Divine Mercy. He then called on Mass attendees to receive the Holy Eucharist in that Mass. He ran short of consecrated Hosts and might have reduced further the already rare population in confessionals.
Priests who are themselves confused about the official Catholic teachings help religious sects such as Iglesia ni Kristo and Ang Dating Daan grow in population. The ministers of these sects deliver good sermons, made apparently credible by their ready quotes, by memory, from the Bible, without the jokes lifted from the encyclopedia of Vice Ganda.
I am not short of experience of priests declaring that Heaven, Puragory and hell are here “states,” or “conditions.” What a way of attracting people to be good and sacrificing so as to reach a “condition” after they die. They miss out on the teaching that the three destinations are places too.
So, let me quote Austrian Maria Simma of the recent past century. She is candidate for sainthood after having lived a humble, holy life in a small village where many of her visitors included ghosts from Purgatory with whom she casually conversed. Here, in an interview, are inputs on the “placeness,” reality of Purgatory and, consequently, Heaven and Hell.
Said Maria Simma: “Purgatory is a place and a condition that every soul experiences when it still needs to do atonement and reparation for sins that it committed during its life before it too can join Jesus in Heaven. Very little is taught about it today, and when little is taught about Purgatory it leads far more people in becoming curious on their own and without any spiritual guidance they then stumble so easily into occult practices.
“Usually it’s said that Purgatory is only a condition. This is only partially true, for it is most definitely also a place. It is also a time for waiting where the souls yearn for God. This yearning for Him is their greatest suffering. All Poor Souls experience this no matter at what level they find themselves. There are three main levels in Purgatory and I experience the souls that need relatively little for their deliverance into Heaven…
“In the lowest level Satan can still attack the souls whereas he can no longer do that in the higher levels. It is true that we are tested while here on earth and that testing stops with our death. However, the souls in the deepest third of Purgatory must first suffer away the sins that they committed before our prayers, Masses and good deeds can be beneficial to them. And a part of that suffering in the deeper levels is that they continue being attacked by Satan. The many levels of Purgatory are different in the same way that all our earthly illnesses are different. One can be a mere irritation of a fingernail while another can consume the entire body like a fire. This fire exists only in the lower levels of Purgatory but not in the highest.
“No soul ever wishes to return here to earth because they have a realization of God that is very much clearer than ours is here. They never want to return to the darkness that we live in here. So God puts the souls there to cleanse them of their sins not yet atoned for and repaired? No, this is usually taught incorrectly, and false teaching such as this can so easily turn people away. God does NOT put them there! The souls judge and then assign themselves to the appropriate level. It is THEY who wish to cleanse themselves before they join God. And realizing this specific truth about God’s love for us is very important.”
In one of her apparitions, the Blessed Mother Mary said that most people drop by Purgatory for purgation before moving to Heaven.
