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Welcome to Unpacking the Mass with Keith Nestor. On this podcast, we dig into the week's readings for the upcoming Sunday for the Catholic Church so that when you go to Mass, you are ready to hear what God has to say to you through the scriptures. So grab your Bibles and let's get digging. Hey, everybody. Welcome to Unpacking the Mass. Today we're looking at the readings for All Souls Day. All Souls Day. Friends, this is an incredible day where we are called to remember those souls who have gone before us into their purification before the Lord, the afterlife. Friends, their moment where they prepare are being prepared to enter into the Beatific vision and our role in our connection with them. It's a beautiful, beautiful celebration, and I want to keep that in mind. When we think about remembering the dead, it often seems like it would be this solemn thing, and solemn in a good way, but this sad thing. And I understand grief. I understand loss. I've been there. I am there. But what the Church calls us on this day to do is to not just remember them, but to help them. And. And how can we do that? We're going to get into all of that stuff here today. Let's begin with the word of prayer. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Lord, we know that you delight in your saints and that the ultimate goal of this whole thing is restored relationship with you in glory. And, Lord, we remember today those who have gone before us into that place of purification and then, of course, into the Beatific vision. And we ask that today, as we study these readings, we would be made even more aware of the beauty and the necessity to remain in connection with them. In the name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. All right, our first reading from the Book of Wisdom, chapter three, verses one through nine. But the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and no torment will ever touch them. In the eyes of the foolish, they seem to have died, and their departure was thought to be an affliction and their going from us to be their destruction. But they are at peace. For though in the sight of men they were punished, their hope is full of immortality. Having been disciplined a little, they will receive good, because God tested them and found them worthy of himself. And like gold in the furnace, he tried them. And like a sacrificial burnt offering, he accepted them. In the time of their visitation, they will shine forth and will run like sparks through the stubble. They will govern nations and rule over peoples and The Lord will reign over them forever. Those who trust in him will understand truth, and the faithful will abide with him in love. Because grace and mercy are upon his elect and he watches over his holy ones. That's so beautiful. My friends, our second reading from Romans, chapter 5, verses 5 through 11. The church gives two options. I'm going with the first one, and it reads this. And hope does not disappoint us. Because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, which has been given to us while we were still weak. At the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. Why, one will hardly die for a righteous man, though perhaps for a good man one will dare even to die. But God shows His love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Since therefore we are now justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, who, much more now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life? Not only so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received our reconciliation. And then our Gospel From John, chapter 6, verses 37 through 40. And by the way, you're going to see the verse here. Hear the verse that our ministry down to earth gets his name from. 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 everyone who sees the Son and believes in him should have eternal life. And I will raise him up at the last day. Awesome verses there, my friends. You know, All Souls Day reminds us of those who have departed this life and yet are still connected to us. That's the biggest difference when it comes to this stuff that I encountered when I became Catholic was the recognition that death does not separate the body of Christ. The body of Christ consists of those who are here on earth and those who are in heaven and those who are in purgatory that are being prepared. And remember, purgatory is not a second chance. Purgatory is not in between stage of heaven and hell. No, my friends, Purgatory is sort of like the mudroom of heaven. It's the Place of purification, where one passes through in order to be prepared to enter into heaven. Because the Scriptures tells us that nothing impure can enter into heaven. Now, people say, oh, wait a minute, but Jesus purifies us perfectly, right? Well, in one sense he does, but yet we still remain in many ways attached to sin. Or there may be some temporal punishment that we still have to satisfy because of our sin. Remember, purgatory is only for those who are ultimately going to enter into heaven. And yet that time spent there is a time of, you could call it suffering. It's not going to be fun. But yet you will always have hope, because you know that this is preparing you for what lies ahead. And we remember that the souls in Purgatory can intercede for us and we can intercede for them. And that's what we're called to do. The Church calls us all, especially on All Souls Day, to do this. Now, we, like in the Rosary Crew, we pray for the souls in Purgatory every Friday. And of course, you can pray for them whenever you want. But it's healthy to have this rhythm of prayer. It's healthy to have this recognition that the things that we can do here on earth can assist them in their purification. This is a concept that we need to remember. It's part of what it means to be part of the body of Christ. The Catechism of the Catholic Church talks about it this way. In paragraph 1030. 1031, it says, 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 purification so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven. The Church gives the name Purgatory to this final purification of the elect, which is entirely different from the punishment of the damned. All right, now I know that's a. You could talk about this. It's a big topic. I have a. One of my first ever Catholic Feedback videos is about Purgatory. You can check that out if you want to. Just look back on the channel. And I've made a couple other videos specifically with Catholic Answers apologist Carlo Broussard, who's written books about this. So if you're interested in those things, we'll put links in the description to those videos. You can check them out. But suffice it to say that this is not something that the Catholic Church made up and invented. This has been part of what it means to be part of the people of God. I mean, even the Jews before the time of Christ understood that it was a good thing to pray for the dead. Of course, there's those verses in Second Maccabees that talk about that. And we remember, my friends, that this isn't something that is like a medieval invention of the Catholic Church. I mean, I got a couple quotes from some saints here that will help us understand this. First of all from St. John Vianney, who talks a lot about Purgatory, he says this. If it were but known how great is the power of the good souls in purgatory with the heart of God, and if we knew all the graces we can obtain through their intercession, they would not be so much forgotten. We must therefore pray much for them that they may pray much for us. So they have power to pray for us, and we have power to pray for them. My friends, we can't forget about that. I love that the Church gives us this reminder. But here's the thing. We also approach this day in celebration because we remember that what lies ahead for those who who die in friendship with God is greater than we can ever imagine. Friends, heaven is better than you think it could be. Being with Jesus is more amazing than you could ever possibly imagine. And those souls that have gone before us in a state of grace and friendship with God assured of their salvation, friends, we rejoice for them. And we're called to help those on the journey through our prayers, through our works of mercy. People say, what can we do to help them? I mean, they're there, we're here. What can we possibly do? Well, of course, the Church tells us that they can be assisted by our prayers and acts of mercy. Why? Because that's part of God's plan. Think about it like this. If you follow that logic and you object to that, then you could really make the same case, say, well, then why was. Why was Christ's sacrifice on the cross 2000 years ago efficacious for us today? Because Christ's suffering was redemptive. Now people go, oh yeah, that was Christ. Well, not us. Well, don't you know that Jesus calls us to unite our suffering with his suffering. We're called to share in his sufferings. What does that mean? We can't literally go back in time and be on the cross. But through our obedience and through our faith and through our acts of mercy and sacrifice, we can participate in Christ's redemptive suffering. It's not our redemptive suffering. Our suffering is not redemptive apart from Christ, my friends, we got to always remember that. It's by joining our suffering with Christ, that our suffering can thus have meaning. So whatever it is that we're doing through prayers, through acts of service, through giving of alms, through mortifications, through fasting, all of these things, if we offer them to God for the purpose of that, he can take that and use it however he sees fit. And that's pretty amazing, isn't it? We help these souls on their journey through our prayers and works of mercy. St. John Chrysostom, right, says this. One of the holiest works, one of the best exercises of piety which we can practice in this world is to offer sacrifices, alms, and prayer for the dead. Now, St. John Chrysostom, this is a long time ago, my friends. He's over a thousand years ago. He's not some new weird fangled Catholic dude. Keep that in mind. This is what he's saying, one of the holiest things that you can do. But we must remember, my friends, that this is ultimately a celebration. It's a call to work, but it's a call to celebrate because we can have hope. Because, as we saw in our second reading, Christ has conquered death not just for Himself, but for all of us, my friends, because he has been raised, we are raised because of what he has done with, we can be reconciled to the Father. I love the way St. Paul puts that, my friends. He says we're now justified by his blood. How much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God? For if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God, how much more now that we're in relationship with Him. Right, that's my paraphrase. Christ died for you when you hated his guts. Christ came and died for us when the world was rejecting Him. That's when he came to us. He didn't look at you and me and say, hey, you guys get your act together and then I'll die for you. No, Christ died for us while we were still evil. You know, like he says, basically, we didn't deserve it. We didn't deserve it. We still don't deserve it, my friends. And we got to keep that in mind. We got to remember, we don't earn that. We don't deserve it. Christ gave it to us while we were still enemies. But imagine what St. Paul's doing here is so beautiful, isn't it? He's saying now, think about that. Think about the goodness and glory of God and His outpouring of love to us when we were against Him. Now that we've been justified by his grace, think of the love that we have now from Him. It's beautiful, isn't it, my friends? That's what God has prepared for those who are going on to glory with him. And we remember those souls in that state. We look forward to that for them. We're like, oh man, praise God for what lies in store for those who've been purified, who are going to enter into the beatific vision, my friends, and what an honor it is for us that our works in union with Christ works can assist them on their journey. It's beautiful. Just like here on earth, our works and our prayers can assist other brothers and sisters here on earth in their journey towards holiness and friends, this isn't some weird thing. We got to stop disconnecting everything. We believe that here on earth we can do things to help each other, right? I mean, we're called to do that. And yet that connection is not severed by death. In fact, there's elements of it that make it even more efficacious. For the souls in purgatory are even closer to God than we are so they can intercede on our behalf in a powerful way. Now let's think about our gospel here. Isn't it beautiful? First of all, did you catch the down to earth verse, right? Did you catch that in verse, what is it, 38? For I have come down from heaven right to earth, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. That's the whole thing of our ministry right there, my friends. And what is the will of the Father, right? That he's not going to lose one. That Jesus is going to save everyone who turns to him in faith. Now some people get hung up on this verse, right? Some of my reformed brothers and sisters, right, will say things like, ah, well, you know, if somebody who God wants to save isn't saved, then Jesus failed. Have you ever heard that line of reasoning? And so what they'll do with that is they'll then say, well, you could ask them, well then, is everybody saved? No. Well then what happened? Well, God must not wanted to have saved them. I saw a post from a guy the other day who said, who said the Gospel, the work of Jesus on the cross, saved everyone that it was intended to save. The implied meaning is that there are some that it wasn't intended for. And that's one of the core doctrines of Calvinism, limited atonement, right? That there's a limited number of people that God wanted to save. They don't care about the Bible verse that says that God wills that all men be saved. They say, oh, well, that doesn't really mean that they want to look at this and go, well, okay, they can't wrap their minds around the fact that God wants to save someone, but yet they're not saved because they don't understand free will. They've removed it from the equation. I should say, they might understand it, but they pulled it out of their theology because in their mind, they think that if a human being actually has free will, then somehow God's sovereignty has been compromised. Friends, God's sovereignty is not compromised by humans free will. That's part of his sovereignty. He sovereignly gave humans free will, and he's decreed. You can even see it right here in this verse. I mean, what does it say? Verse 40. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him should have eternal life. He even puts a condition right there. He doesn't say every human being everywhere. And he doesn't say only the ones that I have picked out before the foundation of the world that had nothing to do with what they do. No, he says, here's the condition. Whoever sees the Son and believes in him will be given this eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. Well, you Catholics don't believe that you can have assurance of your salvation, right? Think about that. Have you ever heard that before? Well, yeah, that's correct in one sense. In another sense, that's completely incorrect. And I think that the teaching of the Church would back me up on this, right? In the sense that we could say that anyone who dies in friendship with God in a state of grace can be absolutely assured of their salvation. Boom. There you go. That's what this is talking about. The hesitancy that we have to presumptuously declare that I know that I'm saved. And sometimes they'll do this. Well, I know that. I know that. I know that. I know that I'm saved. Wow, okay. That incoherent sentence just made more sense. They want to do that as a way. And they'll point to verses that say, I write these little. You know, first John says, I write these things to you, that you may know that you are saved. Yeah, he's talking about in a state of grace. If we die in a state of grace and fellowship with God, then we know that we're saved. Where the Catholics will honestly look at themselves as they will say, but I can't presume to know the future, that I won't fall away someday, that through My own free will. I won't turn my back on my faith like others have done. St. Paul talks about a couple of Hymenaeus and Alexander. He says they've made shipwreck of their faith like Judas Iscariot. Well, was he really saved? This guy did miracles. He preached the gospel. He was given power to cast out evil spirits. And you want to like talk about this whole thing, Was he really saved? No, he wasn't really saved because he wasn't really dead. We're not ultimately saved until we step into eternity, my friends. Now some people might freak out at that. Wait a minute, I thought you were saved. Justification? Yes, in that sense. But it's not a done deal until it's a done deal. Does that make sense? You could be saved right now in a state of grace from that status position, right? And that you can be in that place, but you can't presume that that's how you will ultimately die. So at the end, that's why the church doesn't canonize people while they're still alive, because we have to make it to the end in order to enter the fullness of what it means to be saved. That's what I mean by that, my friends. We're not truly saved until we've made it to the end. You understand what I mean there? And I know some people get really hung up on that, but that's the way it works. And God has chosen that anyone who puts their faith in him and puts believes in him and obeys him and perseveres to the end will have assurance of their salvation. That's what Jesus is saying. There's not this issue of the insufficiency of his sacrifice. There's not this change of mind of God that's going to take place where he puts himself out there. He offers salvation through his death on the cross and then later there's some like problem with it. There's no problem with him, my friends. The problem is with us because we have that free will. And that's how God designed it, my friends. Now what do you do about that? Right? How do you deal with that? Well, the Bible tells us that we're to work out our salvation with fear and trembling, that we're to take that seriously, that we're to put our faith and trust in God. Are we to walk around terrified every day that we're going to die and go to hell? No, that's not what we're supposed to do. But we are to take our salvation seriously and do all that we can by God's grace, to go and sin no more as we've been redeemed by Christ, to live as St. Paul says, according to the calling that we've received, to abide in Christ as he said himself, to not be cut off. Because what did Jesus say happens to those branches that do not bear fruit? They're cut off and they're thrown away. It doesn't say, well, they never really were a part of the vine. No, it doesn't say that. Otherwise they wouldn't have to be cut off. Friends, we got to take this seriously. And yet at the same time, we approach God with humility and understanding that he loves us, that his love for us is more powerful than we can possibly imagine, that nothing can separate us from his love, my friends, that of all those who've been given to Jesus, he will not lose one. He's not going to lose you. Are you going to lose him? That's the question, you might say, well, that's a terrifying thing. Well, draw near to Christ. That's why it's so important to stay connected to Him. That's why it's so important to practice your faith, to be obedient to the church, to shun sin, to flee from evil, to persevere to the end, to fight the fight, keep the faith, run the race, finish the race. As St. Paul says, friends, are you getting this? And All Souls Day is really the celebration and the push for those who have gone before us that they might enter into that glory. And it's also the remembrance that they can help us as well. I love this quote from Archbishop Fulton Sheen. He says this. As we enter Heaven, we will see them, so many of them, coming towards us and thanking us. We will ask who they are, and they will say, a poor soul you prayed for in Purgatory. Venerable Fulton Sheen. Anybody remember that? Cheesy, but we'll just call it awesome but cheesy song from that guy Ray boltz in the 80s. Thank you for giving to the Lord. It's all about a guy who goes to heaven and he runs into somebody who he taught in Sunday school when the guy was a little kid, and he prayed a prayer to Jesus. And you know, in heaven, the guy's thanking him. You know, it's a nice song, right? Well, Fulton Sheen basically extends that and says, you know what? There should have been another verse of that song, the verse about the guy who offered up his sacrifices and his suffering for the souls in purgatory. And this guy was able to enter into the beatific vision because of this guy's help. That would have been a cool verse, right? Maybe he's the Catholic, will write a version of that. Maybe there already is. I don't even know. But the point is this, friends. You know, we can offer ourselves for those souls and we can ask them to intercede for us. And that's a beautiful part of our connection. So what are you going to do? You know, go to a cemetery and pray for the souls? Light a candle. You can do all kinds of things, my friends. I don't mean like, oh, just light a candle. But no, I mean like in prayer and in devotion to the Lord. Offer up a fast, pray the rosary. Friends, there's so many things that you can do. And you might have people in your mind that have gone before you that you are feeling drawn to pray for. Do that. But I would also encourage you to say some prayers for those in purgatory who have no one to pray for them. Because it's a tragic thing if there's no one remembering them. And I believe that our Lord can take those sacrifices that we say, lord, I offer this for a soul in purgatory and that needs it the most right now. And that can be efficacious. Friends. Be a part of this. Participate in this church wide workday I call it. You know, back when I was a pastor, we'd have these church work days where everybody would show up on like a Saturday morning and we would have these big projects we wanted to get done. You know, we're gonna go spray pledge on all the pews, we're gonna clean out the closets, we're gonna pick up the grass, we're gonna break the leaves, whatever we're gonna do. It's like this church wide work day, this big thing, All Souls Day is a remembrance and it's also like a call to like the church wide workday for the souls that are in purgatory. My friends. Let's do our part for them and ask them to pray for us as well. Thank you so much for watching here on Unpacking the massive. Once again, I wanna thank you who support our ministry. We couldn't do this without you. And we know we have three ways to give here at at down to Earth through our support communities online. We have Patreon, which is focused on like content that we provide. We have Locals, which is more of a community based group. And then of course through our website, down to earthministry.org and that's where people go if they want like a tax deductible donation, or usually people with larger gifts go there because of that benefit. But either way, there are options for you in that. And I just want to say thank you to those who have been faithful to support this ministry. We have a big vision for the future. We've done a lot of stuff, seen a lot of things happen since we started this in 2020. And we believe God's just getting us started. And this big vision is going to require even more support. So thank you to those of you who have who have done that, and to those of you who are considering. I would just ask you to pray about that and do whatever Jesus tells you. Thanks for watching, my friends. Take care and God bless.