Last week I celebrated a Funeral Mass in the Traditional Roman Rite, often called the old Latin Mass. And the thing that struck me about it was that every prayer, every gesture, every chant was directed to one thing – the eternal destiny of the soul of the departed. The Church was doing what she has always done – imploring God’s mercy for the soul, offering the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass for them, and praying that they might be brought safely to Heaven. And it made me ask the question: haven’t we lost this sense of eternity?

In today’s Gospel (Matthew 13:24-30), Our Lord tells the “Parable of the Wheat and the Weeds.” The servants are very eager to pull up the weeds as soon as possible, but the master said, “Let both grow together till the harvest.” Later on, Our Lord explained that the harvest is the end of the age, when every person will stand before God and have to give an account of their life. And this is a truth that our modern world likes to ignore; that one day you and I will die, and we will have to stand before the judgement seat of Our Lord JESUS Christ, and give an account of every thought, word, deed and omission.

For centuries, Catholics knew these realities as the Four Last Things: Death, Judgment, Hell and Heaven. They remind us that life is short, eternity is forever, and that every choice we make has eternal consequences. But one rarely hears them preached about today, and this has become particularly evident at funerals. Modern funerals, even in the Catholic Church, have become “a celebration of the life of …” One often sees this printed on the cover of the Order of Service for a Requiem Mass. Of course, we want to thank God for the blessings of the deceased’s life and for everything they meant to us, and to comfort the mourners. But if that becomes the focus, the whole purpose of the Requiem Mass becomes obscured, because the primary purpose is not to celebrate the deceased. It is to worship God and to pray for the soul of the one who has died, because nothing defiled can enter Heaven (Apocalypse 21:27). But unfortunately today, we have drifted into thinking that everyone automatically goes straight to Heaven.

This is why the Church’s teaching on Purgatory is so important. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches, “All who die in God’s grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation, but after death they undergo the purification” (CCC#1030). If we die in a state of grace or friendship with God, the place of purification is Purgatory. And this is not bad news. It’s actually fantastic news, because it demonstrates God’s great mercy and His desire that we all reach Heaven. If Purgatory is real, and it is an infallible teaching of the Church that it is, our Masses for the dead matter, our Rosaries for them matter and our sacrifices matter. It would be the most tragic thing if we were to speak endlessly about someone’s life, but then neglect the one thing that matters most – praying for their soul. This is one of the reasons the traditional Requiem Mass is so powerful. It keeps our eyes firmly fixed on eternity. Over and over again the words, “Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine” are repeated. “Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord.” Whether a funeral Mass is celebrated in the modern rite or the traditional rite, this must always remain our focus. The greatest act of love we can show to our departed family and friends is not merely our remembrance, but our prayers.

But today’s Gospel is not only about those who have died. It’s also about us, the living. Today we are the wheat growing among the weeds. God is still giving us time. His mercy is always calling us to repentance. But the harvest will come. Christ will return, either at our death or at the Second Coming, but will He find us ready? Let us not waste the time God has given us. And let us never forget the faithful departed. Pray for them and have Masses offered for them. They can no longer merit for themselves, but we can help them by our prayers. One day, others may stand by our grave. May they not merely speak nicely about us: may they pray for us!

Fr Paul Gillham, IC