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THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION AND THE HOLY SOULS

In union with Mary Immaculate, we are called to merciful intercession for the souls in purgatory. Growing up, I had a very limited concept of purgatory. I thought it was all about punishment. It was better than hell, because the punishment wouldn’t last forever, but, while it lasted, it was pretty much the same. Somehow, I had developed an “eye-for-an-eye” understanding of God’s justice with little or no understanding of His mercy. If you’re bad, God punishes you; if you’re really bad, He punishes your forever.

My understanding of the Immaculate Conception was also very limited. I thought “Immaculate Conception” was just a fancy term for a privilege given to Mary at a single moment in time—the moment when she was conceived in her mother’s womb.

I had dutifully learned (but not understood) that, when the rest of us human beings are conceived, we get Original Sin. No one I knew could even come close to figuring out what that was. All we knew was that we all got it and Mary didn’t. That made her special, but it didn’t really seem to have anything to do with us.

Obviously, there’s some truth that can be found in all this. But there are deeper realities that are obscured by it. Since we’re dealing with mysteries here, we will, of course, never fully understand, but Church teaching on both purgatory and the Immaculate Conception is quite clear and consistent, and various popes and saints have offered significant insights. What has emerged for me is a whole new way of viewing both of these mysteries, and a way of viewing them together.

REALITY #1: Heaven

“God desires everyone to be saved” (1 Timothy 2:4).

The Church teaches that God wants all of us to share in His life of love forever. He excludes no one! But “Our God is a consummate fire” (Hebrews 12:29). His love is so pure and intense that only the pure can live in it and “see Him as He is, face to face.” Thus, before we can enter heaven we must become pure and holy, like God (The Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1023).

REALITY #2: Hell

“He who does not love remains in death” (1 John 3:14).

If God wants us all to be saved, why does hell exist? Because “we cannot be united with God unless we freely choose to love Him. God predestines no one to go to hell. To die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God’s merciful love means remaining separated from Him forever by our own free choice.” Hell is thus a state of self-exclusion from communion with God (Catechism, 1033, 1037).

REALITY #3: Purgatory

“To bring you holy, pure, and faultless into His presence” (Colossians 1:22).

Purgatory is not a “second chance” to see if you’re worthy of salvation. The souls in purgatory are already destined for heaven. They are the holy souls of those who have died in a state of grace but are not yet perfected, and their “final purification” is “entirely different” from the “punishment” in hell (Catechism, 1031, 1054).

As Pope John Paul II explains, “God, who is Love, judges through love. It is love that demands purification before man can be made ready for that union with God which is his ultimate vocation and destiny” (Crossing the Threshold of Hope).

REALITY #4: “After you have suffered, Christ will perfect you” (1 Peter 5:10).

How do holy souls become purified and perfected to the point that they become holy, like God? Through suffering!

Christ Himself was perfected through suffering (Hebrews 2:10), and Our Lady actively participated in His saving mission, “suffering grievously with her only-begotten Son” (Lumen Gentium, 58). We, too, must take up our cross (Luke 9:23), and drink the cup of suffering (Matthew 20:22). We must all go through a “purgatory” of some sort, either in this life or the next.

REALITY #5: Our growth in holiness is a sharing in Mary’s immaculate relationship with God. Pope John Paul II explains that Mary was “the first to receive God’s mercy” and she received it in “a particular and exceptional way, as no other person has”(Rich in Mercy, 9). Like us, Mary was redeemed by virtue of Christ’s saving sacrifice, but, by a special gift of mercy, she was redeemed in advance of that sacrifice, “fashioned by the Holy Spirit as a new creature” and “adorned from the first instant of her conception with the radiance of an entirely unique holiness” (Lumen Gentium, 56).

What does the “entirely unique holiness” of the “new creature” mean for us in the process of our own growth in holiness? Mary, herself, gave us the clue at Lourdes. When Bernadette asked her who she was, she didn’t describe herself as immaculately conceived; she named herself as the Immaculate Conception. Thus she implies that she is not merely holy, but, by the special indwelling of her Spouse, the Holy Spirit, she is holiness itself.

Mary is the unique dwelling place of the holiness we are all called to share. Pope Pius IX says that she is “the only one who has become the dwelling place of all the graces of the Holy Spirit,” and the Catechism tells us that, in her, we recognize the “model and source” of holiness (2030). She perfectly reflects God, and this is what we all must do in order to enter heaven.

One of the examples often used in reference to purgatory is the firing of silver in a furnace to remove all impurities. The process is not complete until the silversmith can see his reflection in the silver.

Purgatory is the furnace of God’s love, in which all the impurities, all the “wood and straw” (1 Corinthians 3:12) of our lives, are burned away until only the “silver” remains--so that we who are created in the image of God can perfectly reflect that image back to Him, just as Mary does. Purgatory is thus a continuing act of God’s mercy, whereby, through Our Lady’s intercession, we come to share in her immaculateness and are thus made ready for heaven.

REALITY #6

It is through Mary Immaculate that the souls in purgatory are cleansed and released. Pope John Paul II writes that Mary is “the one who has the deepest knowledge of the mystery of God’s mercy,” and thus we look to her as the “Mother of Divine Mercy” (Rich in Mercy, 9).

The great mercy that God gave to Mary (in creating her as the Immaculate Conception) He also wants to give to us through her intercession. Mary is the mediatrix of mercy. In her, “the Holy Spirit fulfills the plan of the Father’s loving goodness” and brings us, the “objects of God’s merciful love, unto communion with Christ” (Catechism, 723).

Theologian Fr. Peter Damian Fehlner, FFI, points out that Mary is created immaculate, reserved from all stain of sin, so that she can serve as mediatrix of all graces. Thus, she becomes, in effect, the instrument of the Holy Spirit, the instrument of Mercy.

“The ultimate in mercy,” Fr. Peter goes on to explain, “is, of course, completing the cleansing of our souls. If we don’t complete it on earth, we have to complete it in purgatory. The way we are cleansed on earth is always through the mediation of Our Lady, and if that is true while we are in this vale of tears, it’s all the more so when we are in purgatory, where we can no longer take any kind of active initiative. Thus, the basic initiative of freeing souls, for completing their purgation, is precisely that of Our Lady.”

What does all this mean for us in practical terms? It means that we should continuously turn to Mary Immaculate, for ourselves and everyone else, offering her all our prayers, works, and sufferings, and entrusting to her our own salvation and that of those who have gone before us. Our prayer for the holy Souls then becomes a meaningful act of fraternal love that thus also purifies us. As we pay for the hastening of their purification, we also hasten our own.

- By Vinny Flynn

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St. Michael the Archangel

St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle; be our safeguard against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray. And do you, O prince of the heavenly host, by the power of God, cast into Hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.

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