The Great Multitude of All Souls

All souls: a great multitude which no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and tongues. [Revelation 7:9]

In John 6:37-40, Jesus tells us:

All that the Father gives me will come to me;
and him who comes to me I will not cast out.
For I have come down from heaven,
not to do my own will,
but the will of him who sent me;
and this is the will of him who sent me,
that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me,
but raise it up at the last day.
For this is the will of my Father,
that every one who sees the Son and believes in him should have eternal life;
and I will raise him up at the last day.

A newborn baby is not yet able to walk or run, not yet able to chew, not yet able to speak or read, not yet able to understand a joke.

Newborn babies are alive, but not all their built-in abilities are working yet.

When we sinners die, we are like newborn babies: we are not instantly able to enjoy heaven.

Until the moment of death we remain free and able to sin— even if we might be the holiest persons alive.

Until the moment of death we continue to have sinful tendencies.

When we die, God must remove sin and its effects from us so that we are completely free and able to enjoy heaven

That process is purgatory.

As a negative process, purgatory means God is purifying us of sin and its effects so that we enter heaven free and clean.

As a positive process, purgatory means God is waking up our souls, turning on all the lights inside us, making us fully able to run in heaven, fully able to see heaven, fully able to hear heaven, fully able to enjoy and celebrate in heaven.

When we pray and sacrifice on behalf of the dead— as we do especially today— we are helping those souls who died still needing purification.

In Matthew 18:18, Christ tells us:

Truly, I say to you,
whatever you bind on earth
shall be bound in heaven,
and whatever you loose on earth
shall be loosed in heaven.

The Church specially devotes the second day of November to prayer and penance on behalf of those Christians who have died serving the Lord but still needing to be purified of the effects of sin and so be loosed into heaven.

What we are doing today here in church, I hope someone will do for me when I die.

I hope the same for each one of you.

The souls that we help to enter heaven will join all the angels and saints in helping us by their prayers.

May the souls of the faithful departed
through the mercy of God rest in peace.
Amen.
Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord,
and let perpetual light shine upon them.

Turn. Love. Repeat.