Communion of saints: earth, heaven and purgatory

Now let's turn our eyes to heaven! But to do this we must also look towards the reality of Hell and Purgatory. All these realities give us a complete picture of God's perfect plan regarding his mercy and justice.

Let's start with what it means to be saints and focus in particular on the Communion of Saints. In a real way, this chapter goes hand in hand with the previous one on the Church. The Communion of Saints contains the whole Church. So in fact, this chapter could actually be incorporated into the previous one. But we offer it as a new chapter simply as a way to distinguish this great communion of all the faithful from the Church only on Earth. And to understand the Communion of Saints, we must also look at the central role of our Blessed Mother as Queen of All Saints.

Communion of saints: earth, heaven and purgatory
What is the communion of saints? Rightly speaking, it refers to three groups of people:

1) Those on Earth: the militant of the Church;

2) The saints in heaven: the triumphant church;

3) The souls of Purgatory: the suffering of the Church.

The unique focus of this section is the aspect of "communion". We are called to be in union with every single member of Christ. There is a mutual spiritual bond to the extent that everyone is individually united to Christ. Let's start with those on Earth (the militant of the Church) as a continuation of the previous chapter on the Church.

The Church Militant: What determines our unity more than anything else is the simple but profound fact that we are one with Christ. As explained in the last chapter, this union with Christ occurs at various levels and in various ways. But ultimately, every person who is in some way in the grace of God is part of His Body, the Church. This creates a profound union not only with Christ, but also with each other.

We see that this shared communion manifests itself in various ways:

- Faith: our shared faith makes us one.

- Sacraments: each of us is nourished by these precious gifts of the presence of God in our world.

- Charisma: each person is entrusted with unique gifts to be used for the building up of the other members of the Church.

- Common possessions: the early Church shared her possessions. As members today, we see the need for constant charity and generosity with the goods with which we have been blessed. We must first use them for the good of the Church.

- Charity: in addition to sharing material things, we especially share our love. This is charity and has the effect of uniting us.

As members of the Church on Earth, therefore, we are automatically united to each other. This communion between them goes to the heart of who we are. We were made for unity and we experience the good fruit of human realization when we experience and share unity.

The triumphant Church: those who preceded us and now share the glories of Heaven, in the Blessed Vision, have not disappeared. Of course, we don't see them and we can't necessarily hear them talk to us in the physical way they did on Earth. But they didn't go away at all. Saint Therese of Lisieux said it best when she said: "I want to spend my paradise doing good on Earth".

The saints in heaven are in full union with God and form the communion of saints in heaven, the triumphant Church! The important thing to note, however, is that even though they are enjoying their eternal reward, they are still very worried about us.

The saints in heaven are entrusted with the important task of intercession. Of course, God already knows all our needs and could ask us to go directly to him in our prayers. But the truth is that God wants to use the intercession and, therefore, the mediation of the saints in our life. He uses them to bring our prayers to Him and, in return, to bring us His grace. They become powerful intercessors for us and participants in the divine action of God in the world.

Because that's how it is? Again, why doesn't God choose to deal directly with us rather than go through intermediaries? Because God wants us all to share his good work and participate in his divine plan. It would be like a dad who buys a nice necklace for his wife. He shows it to his young children and they are excited about this gift. Mom enters and dad asks the children to bring her the gift. Now the gift is from her husband, but she will most likely thank her children first for their participation in giving her this gift. The father wanted the children to be part of this gift and the mother wanted to make the children part of his welcome and gratitude. So it is with God! God wants the saints to participate in the distribution of his multiple gifts. And this act fills his heart with joy!

The saints also give us a model of holiness. The charity they lived on Earth lives on. The testimony of their love and sacrifice was not just a one-off act in history. Rather, their charity is a living reality and continues to have an effect for good. Therefore, the charity and testimony of the saints survives and influences our life. This charity in their life creates a bond with us, a communion. It allows us to love them, admire them and want to follow their example. It is this, combined with their continuous intercession, which establishes a strong bond of love and union with us.

The suffering of the church: purgatory is a doctrine often misunderstood by our church. What is purgatory? Is it the place where we go to be punished for our sins? Is it God's way of "returning to us" for the mistake we made? Is it the result of God's anger? None of these questions really answer the question of Purgatory. Purgatory is nothing but the ardent and purifying love of God in our lives!

When someone dies by the grace of God, he is most likely not 100% converted and perfect in every way. Even the greatest of saints would have left imperfections in their lives. Purgatory is nothing more than that final purification of all remaining attachment to sin in our lives. By analogy, imagine having a cup of 100% pure water, pure H 2 O. This cup will represent Heaven. Now imagine that you want to add that cup of water, but all you have is 99% pure water. This will represent the holy person who dies with only a few slight attachments to sin. If you add that water into your cup, then the cup will have at least some impurities in the water as it mixes together. The problem is that Heaven (the 100% original H 2O cup) cannot contain any impurities. Heaven, in this case, cannot have even the slightest attachment to sin in it. Therefore, if this new water (99% pure water) is to be added to the cup, it must first be purified also from the last 1% of impurities (attachments to sin). This is ideally done while we are on Earth. This is the process of becoming saints. But if we die with any attachment, then we simply say that the process of entering the final and full vision of God in Heaven will cleanse us of any remaining attachment to sin. Everyone can already be forgiven, but we may not have completely separated ourselves from the sins that have been forgiven. Purgatory is the process, after death, of burning the last of our attachments so that we can enter Heaven 100% free from all that has to do with sin. For example, if

How does it happen? We do not know. We only know that it does. But we also know that it is the result of God's infinite love that frees us from these attachments. Is it painful? More likely. But it is painful in the sense that letting go of any messy attachment is painful. It is difficult to break a bad habit. It is even painful in the process. But the end result of true freedom is worth any pain that we may have experienced. So yes, Purgatory is painful. But it is a kind of sweet pain that we need and it produces the final result of a person 100% in union with God.

Now, since we are talking about the Communion of Saints, we also want to make sure we understand that those who are going through this final purification are still in communion with God, with those members of the Church on Earth and with those in Heaven. For example, we are called to pray for those of Purgatory. Our prayers are effective. God uses those prayers, which are acts of our love, as instruments of his purifying grace. It allows us and invites us to participate in their final purification with our prayers and sacrifices. This creates a bond of union with them. And no doubt the saints in Heaven especially offer prayers for those who in this final purification await full communion with them in Paradise.