Pope Francis died on April 21st last year – which seems a different era. We commend his soul to God, praying for him, not to him, for we presume that even those souls who die in a state of grace, in friendship with God – which we hope Francis did – still need purifying for all the reliquiae peccati – the relics of sin, all the effects of forgiven mortal sins and current venial sins, the latter of which no one immune (barring special grace, as given to Our Lady). The rest of us sins daily, some more than others, piling up temporal punishment in ways known fully by God, and partly by our own limited, and often not properly formed, conscience.
That is the point of Purgatory, as its name implies, to cleanse us of our faults, even our hidden ones. The Scottish bard Rabbie Burns once wrote, ‘oh, to see oursels as others see us‘. But we might say, to see ourselves as God sees us, the full truth of which most of us could not bear.
All to say, like the rest of us when we go the way of all flesh, Pope Francis needs prayers. I ask all of you same for me, when I shuffle off this mortal coil.
Given all this, I’m not sure why Pope Leo presumes that his predecessor is already in heaven:
On the first anniversary of the birth into heaven of our dear #PopeFrancis, his words and actions remain written in our hearts. We carry on his legacy by always proclaiming the joy of the Gospel, announcing God’s mercy, and promoting fraternity among all men and women.
Such is the dies natalis of the saints – their ‘birthday’ into eternal glory. Leo said something similar at the funeral for Francis last year. Such statements give one pause. Does Pope Leo know something that we do not, by a special revelation or divine intuition? Does he not think that Pope Francis, should he have made his peace with God, needs some time in purgatory? It is true that one can be a ‘saint’ even with natural defects of temperament. The irascible Saint Jerome is often painted holding a stone, with which he would beat himself, to chastise his unruly passions. One Pope quipped that if it were not for that rock, Jerome would never have been canonized. Such natural flaws are not sins, unless we will to go along with them, exacerbate them, or don’t do enough to check them. And there are plenary indulgences, even for us hoi polloi, but that’s another story, on which I may write soon.
All to say that it is theoretically possible to go straight to heaven, and some saints do seem to have done so, perhaps even most. We don’t know what happens beyond that veil between life and death, but the beatific death of many saints gives evidence that a life truly well lived leads to paradise. When the pilgrim-saint Benedict Joseph Labre keeled over on the streets of Rome, the children spontaneously ran out of their houses crying out ‘the saint is dead!’. And when Saint Philip Neri breathed his last, his brethren tried to sing the De Profundis, as per custom, but. like Balaam’s donkey, what came out of their mouths was the Te Deum.Â
That didn’t happen with Francis, as it won’t for most of us. Only in the light of eternity will we see what God willed in the vagaries of his papacy, and we take the good (and there is good) with the not so good. Whatever the case, we should still be chanting the De Profundis-es (De Profundi?) and wearing black – or at least purple – vestments in Masses for Francis and all the departed. When I was in Rome on my pilgrimage last summer, trying to pass through the Holy Doors of the major basilicas and cathedrals, I waited in the blazing sun at Santa Maria Maggiore. After finally getting in – past all the selfie-takers – I noticed another line-up inside the door. It was with some relief that I realized it was a queue to view the tomb of Francis. Were they praying for him? To him? Simply curious, desirous of seeing the simply tomb, marked only with his papal name?
I didn’t wait in line, for one could just walk in, and pray behind the barrier, and still get a view of the tomb, if one peered over the top. I prayed a Rosary for the controversial pontiff, and will continue to pray for a man who from our perspective seemed to have sown much confusion, but we know not how he stood with God. To paraphrase Saint Francis – of Assisi – in the end, that’s all that matters.
Requiescat in pace, et lux aeterna luceat ei. +
