When we die... what happens to us then? Why do we pray for the dead?

My purpose in these posts is to bring a variety of Christian witnesses and writers in reflecting on life, encounters, and various situations, in a desire to enhance our understanding of what it means to be a missionary disciple of Jesus Christ at the service of the common good and directly or indirectly give glory to God and extend the Lord's work of salvation to all of humanity. G.S.

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There is life after death... but what is it like?

As Catholic and Orthodox Christians, as well as the various "Protestant, Evangelical, Baptist, or Pentecostal" denominations; we all believe that human life continues beyond death into eternity with God or away from God. Our eternal destiny depends a great deal on our own will, on whether or not we are willing to accept God's love, and to accept his love on his terms.

It is an indication of this faith in the eternal life that God wants to give us that we pray for the dead. Why do we pray for the dead? It's just in case they might have a little bit of "unfinished business" to attend to... any hesitation to let themselves be embraced by God's brilliant and intense love... so our prayers and offerings of Holy Mass are an encouragement and spiritual help for them. If they don't need it, then of course they will simply pass it on to some other poor soul who needs it.

What prompts me to write is the awesome mystery of what happens to us when our spirit leaves behind our mortal body, much as we put aside our clothing when we prepare for sleep at night. Over the years I've been disturbed to discover that many people don't really believe that anything happens to us when we die or understand it, or if they do, they don't much know what to do about it. Equally serious is the fact that people not only consider ending their life prematurely, before their natural time to die, but in some cases actually take measures to end their life of have someone end it for them.

Canada is now almost leading the world in extending "MAiD" - medical aid in dying - to almost anyone who wants it. It began with allowing it for people just about at the end of their life anyway but who are in great pain or suffering, physically, or psychologically, or both. Gradually, the barriers have been pushed further and further back, until it is conceivable that one day anyone will be able to ask to be killed just because they are tired of living. This is pretty scary....

What is truly sad and tragic is that, in all likelihood, most of those who have asked for MAiD, or who are planning to do so, probably wouldn't do it if they knew that someone cared for them, and that their condition is not a burden others are unwilling to bear with them; in solidarity with them out of love. We all need to be reassured at times that we are loved; this is our human condition, to be uncertain. 

I suppose if I am miserable to everybody during my lifetime, there may not be anybody willing to show me that they care for me when I become terminally or seriously ill. Still, a truly loving person may still show that they care even for a miserable, grouchy, uncaring, hard-hearted person. Some people truly are that loving; their life is so full of love, that they have to pour it out on others. 

What is truly evil and may actually be criminal is the possibility that health care institutions may look upon killing people as economically advantageous... to get rid of people who are suffering and lingering in order to free up their bed and room in the hospital or other institution. 

I don't know how you were raised - with faith or not - or what kind of life you have lived, or what sort of challenges you have faced, what pain and suffering you have endured, but still, it won't hurt for me to share a few thoughts with you, and who knows, you may find them helpful.

Our mortal flesh, our human life in the body, is amazingly resilient... just think of all that we go through in life and survive; as your oved ones may have done their whole life long. Yet, when it comes right down to it, our life is also quite fragile. When enough pressure is put on our life, it simply stops.... All that we have become, on the inside, is what we call the soul or spirit. When we die... what happens to us then?

Many if not most scientists today, as brilliant as they are, deny the existence of our soul simply because they can't "observe" it, measure it, demonstrate or "prove" that it exists. They track all of our speaking, behaving, and acting to activity - the firing of neurons - in the brain. So for them, whatever doesn't track to the brain and show the firing of neurons isn't real and doesn't exist.

However, other scientists - especially neuroscientists - have begun to demonstrate that some of who we are and what we do is not at all related to activity in our brain... it remains quiet and "dark" with no synapses firing; yet a lot is going on inside us. They have observed that when we decide NOT to do something, the brain is quiet and dark. THAT decision doesn't come from our brain but from elsewhere outside our flesh. We who believe know where such decisions come from... they come from our will, our mind, our soul.

It is in our soul that God comes to dwell with us in Spirit. God our Father created our soul in the image and likeness of God... our soul is spirit as God is spirit, as the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are spirit. They are divine spirit and we are human spirit. Our soul has an "empty place" deep within us that God designed for Him to come and dwell within us. We are most fully alive, most fully human, most fully ourselves when we welcome God within us. That is why Holy Communion is such an awesome gift, a priceless gift.

So, where is your departed loved one now, their soul, their spirit, all that they came to BE by the time they drew their last breath on this Earth? The Bible tells us that God receives our soul when it must leave the body behind. Our soul is, in a way, naked or unclothed anymore with its flesh, and in his goodness God provides a "heavenly habitation" for the soul while it must wait for the FINAL RESURRECTION when God will raise up our mortal bodies to be like his own in glory. If you are interested you will find many quotes from the Bible about this HERE.

So we have God's word on this... nothing is lost when we die... because all that we have become is precious in God's eyes and He welcomes us into his radiant presence to share eternal life with God, the Most Holy Trinity. We have trouble understanding who and what God is because God is so different.... One single Divine Being who is so full of life that there are actually Three Divine Persons living in intimate community, family, unity and communion of love - the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. The Father sent the Son and the Son accepted to go, to come down among us when Mary replied to the Archangel Gabriel: "I am the handmaid of the Lord. Let it be done to me according to your word." Luke's Gospel chapter one verse 38. That's when the Son took on flesh and became Jesus.

We celebrate that moment every year on March 25th, the Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord. That's coming up again in this New Year 2024, just next March 25th. Happy Feast Day!

Allow me to close with a suggestion. All the above being true, you can continue to be "in communion" with your departed loved one in the spirit, that is, deep within yourself. We're talking about deeper than feelings, deeper than thoughts, way down deep at the centre of who you are, where God comes to be with you... it's in that place that we taste the goodness of God, that we know we are loved, that we know we are united to those we love and can never be separated from them... regardless of how we may "feel".

This "communion of saints" is too deep, too mysterious to capture or put into words, really, and our mind cannot grasp it nor control it, but we can gently allow ourselves to enter into it. It is the Holy Spirit who carries us there and who instills divine peace into us, no matter what may be going on up on the surface of our awareness... loss, grief, fear, regrets, guilt, anxiety, concern, desperation... and all sorts of "negative" thoughts and emotions... or even the positive ones... peace, love, hope, faith, consolation, joy, enthusiasm.... All of these of which we "are aware" happen, we could say, "on the surface" of our lives. God "moves" within our soul "in the depths".

We are complex beings living on many levels and dimensions all at the same time, and it's okay. We don't have to understand it all and we certainly don't need to have it all "under control". Life is an adventure to be lived, not a problem to be solved.

So, if you have recently lost a loved one who has died and left this mortal existence, my sincere sympathies on your loss, and please know that every day we pray for the departed souls and their intentions and all your intentions as well every time we approach the Altar for Holy Mass....

Peace to you all and your families, and may you have a peaceful entry into the Season of Lent in just four weeks. May the Word of God which we will hear during the next couple of weeks bring you much consolation and hope.

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My purpose in these posts is to bring a variety of Christian witnesses and writers in reflecting on life, encounters, and various situations, in a desire to enhance our understanding of what it means to be a missionary disciple of Jesus Christ at the service of the common good and directly or indirectly give glory to God and extend the Lord's work of salvation to all of humanity. G.S.

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© 2004-2024 All rights reserved Fr. Gilles Surprenant, Associate Priest of Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montreal  QC
© 2004-2024 Tous droits réservés Abbé Gilles Surprenant, Prêtre Associé de Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montréal QC 

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What to make of supernatural happenings and private revelations?

My purpose in these posts is to bring a variety of Christian and other writers in a desire to share significant writings that in my estimation contribute to the common good and directly or indirectly give glory to God and extend the Lord's work of salvation to all of humanity. G.S.

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I think the first time I began to notice strange possibly supernatural happenings going on around us was as a newly ordained priest in the Fall of 1983. Someone offered me a little wooden icon (a copy of course) of "Our Lady of Tenderness" from a photo of the original in a Verdun church, where the original icon was sweating a fragrant smelling oily liquid. It smelled of roses only better, more heavenly somehow, and all who smelled them were mysteriously touched in a deeply spiritual way with sheer love from God and a desire or return of love to God and Our Lady. 

Since then, I have noticed any number of such happenings, not to mention a plethora of so called personal revelations and inspired writings. You can see for yourself a few things our pastors have to say about these things in the Catechism of the Catholic Church among other sources. Why, I was myself quite taken up with some of these phenomena from 1992-3 at a time when I had been stirred up by an international priests' retreat in Rome (5,500 priests in September 1990) and was marvelling at all that was happening in the Church and the world and wondering what the Lord was expecting of me. The service developed in the early 1980's in New York by the Paulist Fathers for Evangelization 2000 put on 3 international priests' retreats in Rome in 1984, 1990, and 1999 or 2000. That service has been updated to the year 2033, the second millennial anniversary of our redemption. 

Why all these amazing and often questionable phenomena of private revelations, visions, and messages and why now? What are we to do about them - what is the Father's will for us in the face of these and everything else that is going on in the world and in our lives? My purpose in reflecting on this with you, dear reader, is that chances are you have asked or are asking yourself questions like these or know someone who is. 

Pope Benedict's presence, witness, and pastoral care for us directs us to Jesus, and especially, as the Father's eternal response to us in our need, Jesus in the Most Holy Eucharist (choose your language version of Pope Benedict's Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation on the Eucharist as the Source and Summit of the Church's Life and Mission (February 22, 2007). We have been designed and created by the Father for love, to receive and live in his love and that of his Son Jesus, in the communion of the Holy Spirit. All other things must be judged and ordered in light of this most important of all truths and realities. 

What to think about all the strange happenings? First of all, we must be careful not to jump to the conclusion that they are from God. Paul warned us that even the devil can appear to us as an angel of light in order to deceive us and lure us away from the will and love of our Father. It also happens that strange things can happen due to human deception or illness that can cause or exaggerate unexplainable human behaviour. 

That is why our Church authorities have always taken great care in judging these things. It took some 20 years of investigation before the Pope and bishops felt the Church say definitively that what happened at Lourdes or Fatima was worthy of human belief, that is, that people can reasonably believe that what happened in these places was of supernatural origin, that is, from God. 

 Why are so many of these phenomena happening in our times? Perhaps because the devil has been for many years recruiting agents, witting or not, in such areas as the arts, media, politics, and culture in general, to break down any remaining barriers of morality, decency, respect, and consideration of others in human society, the Blessed Trinity are endeavoring to strike a balance in what is getting the attention of people, especially the innocent, the poor, the fragile, the old, and the young. 

Since many have lost their way and may not even know about what really goes on in church on Sundays and so don't have any occasion to benefit from the pastoral ministry and care of the shepherds Jesus continues to send us, it seems as though the Good Shepherd is using once again some of the arts of Simon Peter the fisherman and casting all over the world a very wide net to catch all those that can be caught in order for the three divine Persons to get their undivided attention, if only for a few moments, hours, or days. 

Each of these supernatural happenings, books of private revelations, and signs in the sun and in the sky, and so on are so many strands in this new fishing net from Heaven combing the seas of human society to catch all the good and often suffering souls who, though lost, are somehow seeking or desiring the good intended for them by our Father and Creator of us all. 

Now, if the Father, Jesus his Son, and the Holy Spirit already have your attention, and you are walking in the company of our Blessed Mother Mary, Mother of all disciples and of the Church, and are allowing yourself to be drawn each Sunday to the Divine Liturgy at the faith Assembly where Jesus continues to nourish and form us to live and proclaim the Good News in the world all week with our lives; then you really don't need all these unusual things. 

If for a time they may help you better understand the Gospel and other Scriptures and the ways of the Lord and increase your enthusiasm for prayer, for reading Scripture, for living all day long in the presence and company of the Blessed Trinity, and for serving your neighbor - even to forgiving enemies and praying for the good of evildoers before the Lord - then perhaps the Lord intends for you to use them, for a while. 

However, beware of the trap of getting hooked on these "goodies" and letting yourself become closed in on your own personal and private experience of God but diverted from actually living your life, having your own relations with the three divine Persons in God, generously carrying out your duties, and going out into the world. If these things anaesthetize you to what is your real life and pull you into something of a fantasy and a distaste for the company of others or for real life, then you would only be regressing. 

You would be like the person who throws away a precious gift in order to play with the wrapper in which it came. It's fine for little children to enjoy playing with boxes, but it's no longer healthy for adolescents or adults to do that all the time. Once in a while, OK, but be careful. God gives us graces, kind of like spiritual "candy" that makes us feel loved and sense spiritual pleasure, but only sparingly, so that we will not become obsessed with getting more candy but rather fall in love with the Giver of the gifts, and want to become like Him and go out and do as He did and say as He said.....

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My purpose in these posts is to help spread the contributions of a variety of Christian and other writers in a desire to share significant writings that in my estimation contribute to the common good and directly or indirectly give glory to God and extend the Lord's work of salvation to all of humanity. G.S.

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© 2004-2021 All rights reserved Fr. Gilles Surprenant, Associate Priest of Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montreal  QC
© 2004-2021 Tous droits réservés Abbé Gilles Surprenant, Prêtre Associé de Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montréal QC 

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