From the bulletin for The Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Aug 11, 2024)
The Eschatological Adventure, Part 5: “Saved, But Only As Through Fire”
In the afterglow of Eager Louis’ particular judgment, a deep peace bathed his soul, flowing from the very center of his being. And he recognized its source: there within, the Light itself mysteriously dwelt, deep down where he could not reach. Eager did not see God yet. But he understood that God was with him and that he would see God. And this was tremendously consoling, especially in light of the fact–clear as crystal now–that this was pure, undeserved gift but one that God had led him to be worthy of forever.
Though at peace, Eager’s being was now gripped by a piercing hunger. In the body, the appetites of the soul are muted in the measure one is invested in the senses. In the flesh, Rev. Louis’ “hunger and thirst for righteousness” was rarely at the forefront of his concerns. But now that there were no senses to dampen, his immortal soul’s thirst for God burned white hot. Earthly hunger pains offer a weak analogy.
And so Eager was in a strange agony: the One whom his soul loved was deep within–closer to him than he was to himself. Yet he found himself in exile still, distant from God and distant from his truest self. He was alone in an “outer darkness.” And there were other sufferings too.
Earlier, the comparison was made between Eager’s soul and a tree. A tree converts nutrients into itself, slowly shaping them into a unique array of boughs and branches. In like manner, Eager had converted his God-given gifts into the person that he was, the choices he made during life. Like many of his deeds, Eager’s soul had a core of goodness that was obscured in significant ways by bad judgment and inattention. The tree was alive, but smaller than it ought to be, with many branches growing at awkward angles. Some were quite dead and barren; others bore fruits, but few.
Or, again, the gemstone that was Eager’s soul was indeed precious. And deep within it a faint spark light danced about, as if trying to burst forth. But the facets of the surface were rough, misshapen, and opaque. Were the saints to see him as he was, he would wither with shame.
And so, though he longed for Heaven, Eager’s soul was overwhelmed by the knowledge that he was not yet ready for the Wedding Feast. Intense sorrow resulted. He needed, truly, to mourn: his miserliness in love, his infidelity to grace, his coldness to others. There could be no more growing. Yet God in His mercy had provided a span in which what was dead and badly formed in him could be pruned away. Disordered love would need to die and fall off. Rough aspects of his personality would be cut and polished in the crucible of patience. He would emerge smaller but humbler; beautiful and pure.
If Eager’s judgment had been waves of light and revelation, his purgation was a series of sorrows. Each bad decision and erring attachment of which he had never fully repented; his willful neglect of the divine will; every act of selfishness: all was to be brought under the imperfect repentance with which he had died and burned away. The errant “twigs” were easy enough to part with. Oh, but there were misgrown branches and entire boughs that needed to come down! These were the disorders he had incorporated into his very identity. Bodily pain offers but a weak comparison to such surgery on the soul.
For how long? Impossible to say. Time is the measure of change; Eager Louis experienced change not by action now, but by painful passion; by his acceptance of painful truths. Some he embraced instantaneously, as if they found no resistance in his soul. Others took eons to break through the hardened parts of the heart, effacing the stone’s roughness as water, drip by drip, does over lifetimes.
The most intense sorrow was not over what was present, but what was absent. In the deepest periods of his purgation, Eager had to come to grips with all the lost grace–the substance of glory–which God had made available to him during life, and which he had not accepted or made himself worthy to receive. Oh, lost potential, farewell forever!
His sufferings, however, were offset by this fact: as he became smaller and smaller, he found himself freer and freer. Lighter, more transparent, and less alone. He became more aware of other souls going through a similar process, and drew comfort from them. To a degree, he became aware of others who were helping him at a distance. Accelerating the process by making him more malleable to the Truth. Consoling approximations of a Lady in Light. Eventually, he found himself growing closer and closer to the Light within, first separated by a wall, then a curtain, till finally it seemed that only a veil kept his soul from beholding a Face who gazed lovingly back. And then, at last, he heard… TO BE CONTINUED!
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