A little while ago I wrote of the love in some of our parish homes felt by those who had lost their spouse. They were aware of their seeming to be still near, small acts of teasing love being played, sometimes vivid awareness of their presence, even occasionally hearing or seeing the loved one. Whatever the explanations, the experiences were real.
Some people spoke of calling out when leaving the house or coming home, imagining the loved ones still there. It is love and some of you were glad to know of those experiences or to know (because you do) that others have them.
This week I tell you of Paul. He is dead now but his elderly mother read of Purgatory and its church explanation of our being with God and longing to be filled with the divine love.
“Filled with the light of God’s love”, she wrote and of Paul “that he could see ‘auras’ around people and only discovered when he was a teenager that other people couldn’t see what he saw. He could look at someone and see which parts of their body were diseased. A local doctor told me he would have loved to have Paul work for him to help with his diagnosing patients.
“Paul gave me lots to think about and I was especially interested in what he had to say about religion. He said to me once ‘You think that all the people at church are good, but there is a lot of dark in there.’ I asked him what happens when people go to Holy Communion. He said ‘Some people are just dark and others become filled with light.’ So I asked him why he thought that was and he said ‘the ones that are dark just don’t believe it.’ I said maybe the ones who are ‘dark’ need to go to confession and he told me that as an altar boy he had watched people going to confession and ‘when they went in they were dark and when they came out they were clear’.
“I’ve always thought that when we die and stand in front of God who is light, when that powerful light shines on us, it hits the dark spots in us caused by our sins and wow! does that hurt. I think that it keeps hurting until the light dissolves the darkness. While it is agony to have it happen our one desire is to be made light, and even while we suffer the pain of purgatory we are filled with love and hope.”
What do you think?
God bless us,
Fr John
(20th January 2019)
Related Links: Popular Reads and Fr John’s Parish Newsletters
