Remember when you used to be afraid of the dark and you were told that there was nothing in the dark that was not there in the light, well . . .
we were wrong!
“This should be a cute bedtime story for the kiddies.”
Welcome my young friends,
I am so glad that you happened by. It is the month of October and you know what that means, yes, it is the spooky season of Halloween, boo! Muhahaha! Of course, it is much more as well. It is actually a very special time for Christians. Just take a peak at some of the various memorials and feasts: St. Therese of the Child Jesus (Oct. 1), Guardian Angels (Oct. 2), St. Francis of Assisi (Oct. 4), Our Lady of the Rosary (Oct. 7), St. Teresa of Jesus (Oct. 15), St. Margaret Mary Alacoque (Oct. 16), St. Luke (Oct. 18), Sts. Isaac Jogues and John de Brebeuf (Oct. 19), St. John of Capestrano (Oct. 23), and Sts. Simon and Jude (Oct. 28). I know you are looking forward to your Halloween parties and/or trick-or-treating and scary movies. You all must know what November 1 is, right? Uhhuh, it is ALL SAINTS day. Ol’ Hallows Eve or Halloween comes on the prior evening. We recall Mary and the saints of heaven, asking them to pray with us, and setting our hopes upon joining them one day. They are wonderful models for us. Nov. 2 is ALL SOULS. This day the priest says three Masses for the dead and can wear either white, purple, or black vestments. We pray for the souls in purgatory and all those still on their journey to God.
“Come on, Johnny,” said his mother, “you should be dressed and yet you haven’t even showered!”
“Oh mom,” he said, “do I have to go? Church is sooo boring, all the priest does is talk and talk and talk.”
“Now listen here young man,” she responded, “you know full well that Mass is a lot more than talk. You go to church to worship God.”
Shrugging his shoulders and heading to the bathroom, he answered back, “Forget it, I’m not going to win this argument, I can tell that already,” and then, under his breath, “I get nothing out of it.”
“What did you say?” Mrs. Nagle asked. “You look at me when we are talking about something serious.” His mom spinned him around, “Young man, as long as you are under our roof, you will go to church, and what’s more, you will like it, hear me?”
“Yes, mam,” he answered, looking at the floor, “I hear you.”
They went to church and Johnny sat, stood, and knelt in all the right places. But his mind was somewhere else. Halloween was coming up and he was fantasizing about all the candy he was going to get this year. Yes, sir, it was sure going to be sweet.
That is how Johnny was, thinking always about himself instead of considering others or even what was due God. His younger sister loved Johnny very much, although he was frequently quite mean to her. He found teasing her to be an irresistible temptation.
One night, before retiring to bed, she entered his room and asked him, “Johnny, will you help me with my “Our Father” prayer, I keep messing it up.”
“Huh, I already said my prayers, go ask mom.”
“Oh, okay,” she said disappointedly.
A few moments later little Cathy and their mother entered the room. “Johnny, I was helping Cathy with her prayers and she told me that you had already done yours.”
“Yeah,” he said, “I did them a long time ago.”
“Like when?” she inquired, “you were watching television all evening. You know I want you doing the rosary.”
“I did it, I just pray faster than you guys, listen,” and then like a machine gun he rattled, “helmarfullgracethalordizwitdee . . . .That is how I always do it.”
“His mother stood there staring. “What am I going to do with you?” She shook her head and left.
Halloween came and Johnny was all dressed in his skeleton custume. He had calculated that if he ran he could triple the houses he reached the previous year. It was a good thing his mother had consented to allow him to go without her usual escort. “I’m too old for that now, the other guys will think I am a sissy.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to walk with me and Cathy?” asked his mother.
“Mom, pleeease,” he begged, and raced out the door.
It was a particularly dark Halloween evening. While there are warnings every year about reflective clothing and large enough eye slits to see through, many outfits violate these safety rules for the sake of realism. Johnny’s outfit was just such one of these. He panted as he ran from house to house. He was going to set a record. Down the block he went and into the next one. He was coming around the turn when he met his undoing.
Mrs. Nagle and her husband Ted were just becoming worried about Johnny’s tardiness when there was a knock at the door. She and Cathy had been back a good hour. She leaped to answer the door. She felt her world come crashing down when she saw who was there.
“My name is Officer Bundy and I am sorry that I must bring some tragic news to you. You have a son named John Jr.?”
“Yes,” she stuttered, “we do.”
“I am afraid he was in an accident tonight.”
“Oh no, oh no,” she covered her face in her hands.
“How bad is it?” asked his father, “what hospital is he in?”
The officer paused, searching for words he knew would not suffice. “He isn’t in a hospital, he was hit by a car and died immediately from the head trauma.”
The next few days and weeks and months saw many tears. The worst possible thing that could happen to parents had happened. They had lost a child.
Thanksgiving and Christmas that year would be drained of joy for the Nagle family. Cathy prayed and prayed, all the time wondering if God heard the prayers of little girls. One day, toward the end of November, she was playing on the front yard swing. She looked up in the sky and thought, “I guess Johnny is somewhere up there in heaven.”
All of a sudden a cloud seem to take shape and she heard a voice. It was the likeness and voice of Johnny. “Cathy, Cathy, can you hear me.”
“I’m scared, are you a ghost?” she asked.
“You can hear me, thank goodness!” he exclaimed.
“Johnny it is you, it is you, let me get mommy!”
“No, there is no time,” he said, ” and they would only see a cloud. It is to you I have come.”
“Johnny, you look funny, there are red bumps on your face, like you got measles.”
“I do have measles, but not the kind you can get. I made myself sick by my sins. I did not love God as I should. So I must suffer in purgatory. It is like a hospital for sick souls. My worst sins were not wanting to go to Mass and saying my prayers too fast.”
“Does it hurt, Johnny?” she asked with deep concern.
“Yeah, but it is getting better,” he said, “that is why I am talking to you, it gets better every time you pray for me.”
Cathy returned, “Then I will pray for you all the time, I will never stop praying for you.”
“You’ll do that for me, Cathy, after all I failed to do for you and all the teasing?” he asked.
“You’re my brother, Johnny, I love you.”
“I love you too Cathy, I love you too.”
And with those words he faded from view and dear Cathy kept her promise.
I guess poor Johnny was a ghost. My father told me this story when I was a little boy. It had been told to him as a child in the 1920’s. Did it really happen? I do not know. But there is a lot we can learn from it. We need to pray for our dead friends and family. Do not presume they are in heaven. Only those who are made perfect live in heaven as saints. Johnny and all other poor souls are still on their journey to heaven. The fire of God’s love purifies them and refashions them ever more and more into the likeness of Jesus. The saints experience the fire of God’s love as a cool breeze. All others encounter it as a burning heat, ever so HOT. I suppose those who hate God are distracted from their eternal loss by this flame. It is a sign of both divine justice and mercy. Those in purgatory know the flame not simply as punishment but as medicine. It heals them and makes them whole according to God’s plan. This notion of purgatory is where Catholics see the possibility of ghosts. They simply want our prayers. We are bonded to them as a family. Families help one another. We can take great confidence that the head of this family is God our Father. He has given us Jesus as our elder brother who has gone ahead of us into eternal life.
Johnny might have been bad, but he was still good enough to claim purgatory. If we are really good and suffer much for the Gospel, we might go straight to heaven. Our hope in heaven rests upon the blessed assurance of Christ’s mediation and self-offering to the Father. Remember to pray every day for departed loved ones. If they are already in heaven then God will apply the graces from those prayers to poor souls who have no one to pray for them.
Peace and blessings,
Fr. Joe
I would just like to post and say that though your ideas about the dead living after they die may sound nice, the fact is that the bible teaches quite the opposite. Please look at these texts and you will see. Those who die know nothing and are “asleep” until Christ returns.
“For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten. Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished; neither have they any more a portion for ever in any thing that is done under the sun.” Ecclesiastes 9:5-6
“As the cloud is consumed and vanisheth away: so he that goeth down to the grave shall come up no more. He shall return no more to his house, neither shall his place know him any more.” Job 7:9-10
“The dead praise not the LORD, neither any that go down into silence.” Psalm 115:17
“His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish.” Psalm 146:4
“For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.” 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17
I see that you have already pulled my earlier post on the state of the dead! The truth can be hard to handle.
I see you have already removed my earlier post about the state of the dead. The truth can be hard sometimes.
It appears it is back now. I guess there is a glitch with the site!
The notion of soul sleep is an interesting SDA view held by certain fundamentalists (often including a repudiation of hell), but it was not something taught either by the Jews or the early Christians. The Catholic view is that the souls of the dead are alive and awake. The dead undergo a particular judgment and await the final judgment. The damned in mortal sin go to hell. Those still tainted by venial sin or bad habits (vices) or deserving of temporal punishment due to sin face purgatory but are on their way to heaven. The perfected saints join the Church in heavenly glory. At the final consummation, there will only be two realities, heaven and hell. I have no “nice” view as you put it. I hold the Catholic position which reaches into antiquity.
ECCLESIATES 9:5-6
The critic of Catholic teaching attempts to use this text from Ecclesiastes to support the soul-sleep argument. It is another instance of a fundamentalist proof-text style of exegesis. He misses several important points. First, the Hebrew view of an afterlife developed or was revealed to them over time. Two, the Jews tended to stress the value of joy in this world and the divine favor of children and property. Three, this particular book and author not only negates the value of an afterlife but even suggests that this existence is fleeting and vain. Existence is viewed as an unsolvable mystery. The author is not talking about soul sleep. Rather, he is simply lamenting that death means you are gone from the world of men. It is rather despairing, saying that there is no reward (certainly no merit can be earned in the grave) and that both their hatred and love perishes. This sense of hopelessness sets the stage some three centuries before Christ for the hope of eternal life that he will bring as Messiah and Savior. We know that in Jesus love is stronger than death. How many times have we told someone that we would love them forever? Jesus makes such a love possible. Jesus brings the dead to life, like the little girl, the widowed mother’s son, and Lazarus. He raises himself from the dead by his own power and promises us a share. He tells the good thief that he would be with him that very day in paradise. The critic here points to an Old Testament text more conducive to atheism than to Christian faith. The dead are alive in Christ and they continue to know and love those they knew in the world.
JOB 7:9-10
This text from Job also says nothing about soul sleep. It also says nothing about ghosts or apparitions. A dead body is a corpse. A disembodied soul (and the SDA cults deny the existence of souls) is a ghost but it is no longer a living man. I will not disavow that ghosts that appear to the living might be souls in purgatory crying out for prayers, although it is also quite possible that the majority of haunts are of demonic origin. The risen Jesus told his friends that a ghost did not have flesh and blood as he did. The souls of the saints are with God and they are able to make intercession for us. The text here simply affirms an ordinary commonplace truth; the dead tend to stay dead. We do not see them walking around. We do not hear them. Their places are taken up by others. The story of Job is an extended reflection upon life, death and suffering. Indeed, his story will fuel a view of an afterlife for the Hebrew community. Sometimes in this world good men suffer and die while the wicked flourish, at least for awhile. An afterlife insures mercy for some and divine justice for others.
PSALM 115:17
This verse is similar to Psalm 6:6: “For who among the dead remembers you? Who praises you in Sheol?” Sheol was the underworld where the non-corporeal souls of the dead dwelled. Jewish theology in the second century B.C. would speak more favorably of life after death, as an existence with God. Again, we are reminded of a progressive revelation which reaches its climax in Jesus Christ. This is not an instance of biblical errancy, but rather that biblical truth must be understood in terms of story and development and by the comparison of texts (contextualism). The coming of Christ sheds a whole new light on the matter of the dead. Remember, before the coming of Christ, the gates of heaven were closed. All the patriarchs and prophets awaited in the abode of the dead for the Savior. This abode was not a joyous heaven, but what some would call Hades (but not true hell) or the Limbo of the Fathers.
PSALM 146:4
The dilemma with this verse is made all the more problematical by a poor translation and the omission of a prior verse. The New American renders it as: “Put no trust in princes, in mere mortals powerless to save. When they breathe their last, they return to the earth; that day all their planning comes to nothing” (verse 3-4). This is not dissimilar to the parable of the rich man who dreams of larger harvest bins so that he might have its bounty for years to come. Jesus calls him a fool because that very night his life will be required of him. Earthly princes cannot save us. Indeed, they cannot save themselves. Even Bill Gates with 60 billion dollars will one day get sick and die. It is this truth that is addressed by the psalm and nothing more. It does not mean the dead are unconscious or asleep. The SDA fundamentalists actually deceive us when they speak of sleep. They deny the soul. They make an argument for annihilation. They believe that at the judgment day the righteous are restored to life and the rest are abandoned to nothingness. That is why they cannot stomach our notion of the communion of the saints or references to hell and damnation, even those made in the Bible.
1 THESSALONIANS 4:15-17
THE SDA cult proposes only the judgment day, not a particular judgment at the time of death. That is why the poor critic here thinks this text invalidates Catholic teaching, which it does not. If the second coming of Christ should catch some still in the world, then they might be the generation never to know death (the separation of the body and soul). The final judgment shall result in some being cast into the fires of hell. The souls in purgatory and the saints of heaven will be restored body and soul. This is what the text means by the dead in Christ rising first. Then all the saints will meet up with Christ for eternal glory. The Christian looks forward to life, to physical reconstitution (in a glorified state) and to reunion with those who have gone ahead of us.
The SDA cults are among the least truly biblical of so-called fundamentalists. They bend over backwards trying to negate or mythologize things like the story of the rich man and the beggar Lazarus and the mystery of Christ’s transfiguration. If the dead are unconscious and asleep, then how can he appear with Moses and Elijah? How can the rich man have a conversation with father Abraham?
By happy providence, even the Gospel read at Mass today repudiates Bob’s view:
Jn 8:51-59
Jesus said to the Jews:
“Amen, amen, I say to you,
whoever keeps my word will never see death.”
So the Jews said to him,
“Now we are sure that you are possessed.
Abraham died, as did the prophets, yet you say,
‘Whoever keeps my word will never taste death.’
Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died?
Or the prophets, who died?
Who do you make yourself out to be?”
Jesus answered, “If I glorify myself, my glory is worth nothing;
but it is my Father who glorifies me,
of whom you say, ‘He is our God.’
You do not know him, but I know him.
And if I should say that I do not know him,
I would be like you a liar.
But I do know him and I keep his word.
Abraham your father rejoiced to see my day;
he saw it and was glad.”
So the Jews said to him,
“You are not yet fifty years old and you have seen Abraham?”
Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you,
before Abraham came to be, I AM.”
So they picked up stones to throw at him;
but Jesus hid and went out of the temple area.
I am a Seventh Day Adventist and am very hurt to hear you think that we are an cult group! I will admit that there have been a few crazies that became cults, just like there are a few crazy priests, but that does not make every one in a cult. The SDA church does not try to change anything from the bible and takes it word for word. The bigger issue here would be the Sabbath which clearly is supposed to be on Saturday and not on Sunday! I know you know the fourth commandment. So I don’t see how the Catholic church thinks they can just up and change God’s Holy day!
HERE is something that perplexes me:
Under PRIEST & MASS there is a Jake making comments with the email skywalker678@hotmail.com.
This Jake says that he is NOT SDA.
Under A STORY FOR CHILDREN: JOHNNY BE BAD there is a Jake making comments with the email rockman456@hotmail.com.
This Jake says that he is SDA.
Both have the same IP number, which means they are working on the same computer: 69.44.220.165.
They come across very similar in ideas and writing style. What’s up?