The feasts of the Church Year vary greatly in their appeal to believers. Some, such as Epiphany, simply present the revealed truth with which they are filled and which has assumed form within them. In others, the divine truth is connected with the ebb and flow of life, as is Christ's resurrection ,with the awakening of nature in spring, or the descent of the Holy Ghost with the plenitude of summer.

Still others, in addition to this kind of association, are closely connected with the deepest of human relationships; Christmas is such a feast; so, also, is All Souls. The birth of Christ is celebrated in the depth of winter and is associated with the turn of the earth toward the coming light; All Souls, the reminder of purification after death, comes in the melancholy season of autumn. But Christmas is also the festival of the family, of its intimacy and seclusion, its love and its hopes, especially as embodied in the children. All Souls is likewise the day on which we recall those who are dear to us and are gone from us.

These two feasts are by no means the oldest -- one hears first of Christmas in the fourth century, and of All Souls, as a general feast, in the fourteenth. Nor are they feasts of the first rank -- the neighboring feast of the Epiphany ranks higher than Christmas, All Saints higher than All Souls. But both are saturated with human associations, and have in consequence impressed themselves deeply upon religious feeling.

The second of these feasts, All Souls, brings up a question which we shall now consider. It emphasizes the truth that our Christian brethren who are separated from us by death are nevertheless closely bound up with us in a common redemption. And this we readily admit. But when the feast with its liturgy and customs calls upon us to help the dead, the admonition strikes many as strange. What does it signify? In what condition do these dead find themselves, and what can our help mean to them?

Simple, naturally religious people, whose roots have not been loosened by the restless activity of mind and will, know themselves to be closely united to the dead. The term Poor Souls expresses their sense of nearness to them and their solicitude for them. This solicitude occupies a large place in their devotions, and it would be a pity for it to disappear. It would be somewhat like separating the farmer from the, soil and transplanting him to the city. The educated man (here the word carries no contempt which would be as foolish as contempt for "the people," for the educated man is a reality who has, in a sense, a special destiny) has lost touch with that particular concern for the dead.

Therefore many customs and ideas associated with the feast have become foreign to him. Such an attitude does not imply loss of faith. Solicitude for the dead, prayers and sacrifices popularly offered for the Poor Souls, need not signify "faith" in the Christian sense. Such solicitude arises from that primitive sense of nearness felt by the man of the soil for the kingdom of the dead. It need not mean continued attachment of the heart to those who have been dear to us. It has, indeed, nothing to do with intensity of feeling, or personal loyalty, but arises, rather, from man's association with the passage from light into darkness, from pulsating earthly life into the realm of death.

And this association is dependent not upon the will of the individual, but upon the extent to which he still lives in the primitive form of existence. And we must not forget that while this sense gives great depth to existence, it can also be dangerous. There have been times in man's consciousness when the dead have been more powerful than the living--let us recall for a moment the early Greeks and their domination by the kingdom of the dead, the overcoming of which by the Olympian religion constituted a brilliant achievement of the Homeric world.

It is this connection with the kingdom of the dead which underlies the popular feeling for the Poor Souls, and gives it such keenness. The educated man, as we have said, has lost this sense, hence the dead are not real to him as a matter of course. He feels no immediate response to their existence. His relation to them is determined by his mind and heart rather than by the depths of his being. Dying, for him, has become a biological process, a purely personal matter which has lost its mystery. Thus his relation to the dead is no longer primarily religious, but intellectual-moral in character. The thought of the Poor Souls makes no direct appeal to him. Solicitude for them together with the usages attached to it are alien to him.

There is something else which belongs here. The relation to the dead has always been a sphere in which instinctive urges, at times of a dark order, have played a prominent part. For death is not only somber and exalted, but destructive as well. Hence death appeals not only to what is serious and noble in man, but also to what is shady, and the sympathy aroused by tales of the sufferings of the departed have not infrequently been mixed with cruelty. Something of this cruelty has crept into the representations of the Poor Souls, and the feelings which they arouse. This is apparent when we compare the way in which the early Christians spoke of the dead with that common in the Middle Ages and later. The earliest ideas were much more intellectual and spiritual; the dominating images were those of light and peace, of birth into eternal life, of Christ's victory over hell and death, and of the judgment of the Righteous God.

Later, pictures of suffering force their way in. Clerical eloquence and pious writing are increasingly concerned with suffering, and portray it by every device of imagination. Pity is thus aroused. But pity brings into play all the contradictions in man -- his tendency to the dubious as well as to the pure. Thus into the representations of the Poor Souls has crept a good deal that is offensive, sentimental and sensational. And to the educated man who lacks that immediate sense of union with the dead the whole business seems disreputable.

Nevertheless, solicitude for the departed is an important element in liturgical life--we have only to recall the Memorial of the Dead in the Mass, and the Office of the Dead. We cannot, then, be indifferent to the matter, or reject it. We must try to understand why it has a claim on us, and what lies at the root of it. Perhaps we may find a way which will teach us better to understand that mysterious realm which has become so profoundly strange to us, and the meaning of that word Purgatory which is used to designate the condition of the dead who are in need of our help. And it may be that this understanding will give us a deeper insight into human existence generally.

Revelation promises that man will one day enter into the eternal presence of God. Through contact with Christ, through sanctifying grace and faith, the new life has been born in him. As long as he is a pilgrim in time, that life is hidden, but at the moment of death it breaks through. From the first it was eternal in the sense that it was God's life. Now it is eternal in actuality for him, that is to say, free from time, purely present. An important moment has been reached in the believer's life when he perceives that what was to follow in the future is actually present, when his consciousness reaches out beyond death.

However, no evil thing can enter God's presence, for God is the Holy One, the Pure One, the Righteous One. Not merely pure and just, He is also the source of all good, and He hates everything evil, low, impure, corrupt, and thrusts it from Him. The believer must ask himself, then, whether there is any way which leads from himself, as he is, to God. The one who is about to enter eternal life is I, myself, but how things stand with me I know only in part, and if I have advanced so far as to reject the superficial appeal to God's goodness which is no more than saying, "Oh, I'm sure everything is going to be all right," then I must realize the impossibility of my attaining to God's presence as I am.

But does not the Faith teach that I attain to that presence not through my own efforts, but through grace? That I shall be forgiven because of Christ's redemptive act? That I shall share in His righteousness? Yes, but I shall share in it, not through magic, but in reality. Christ's righteousness will be not merely imputed to me, not hung about me like a cloak, but it will be part of my very self. So again the question comes up: Is this righteousness truly my own, and has my life, through grace, become an entirely new life?

What, in the long run, determines the worthiness or unworthiness of a man? His inner disposition, his intention. This disposition issues freely from that mysterious mobility which enables him to strike out in a mental direction. The inner disposition is the man's inner direction, his "intention." It might be called the directing will itself, from which freedom derives. It is the intention in which that beginning which is called freedom starts -- whether in good or evil, whether from God or from one's own self, whether directed toward God or away from Him. When a man's inner disposition is toward the good, he belongs to God. It would be quite as correct, even more correct, to add: When a man belongs to God, his inner disposition is good. The angels' Gloria proclaimed peace to men "of good will" (Luke 2:14). To be a man of good will presupposes grace, and peace is proclaimed to those who are possessed of grace. The Gloria is addressed to those whose wills are directed toward God. Thus the two meanings merge mysteriously and inseparably into one.

What, viewed as a living reality, is this inner disposition like? How does this power of initiative show itself? How does this power which arises from one's self give value to one's purpose? The form which it assumes first of all is directly recognizable within ourselves, namely, in our intention. We can judge this intention and be responsible for it. But this is not all. It may be that we adjust our disposition on occasion perhaps when something is out of joint in our life and calls for change. We examine our conscience, repudiate the wrong committed, and decide in favor of the good, but with the feeling, "I am sure to do the same thing again."

In what we call "inner disposition" there are various levels. Underneath the layer controlled by will, which corresponds to moral consciousness, are other levels which elude consciousness. As soon as we become aware of this fact we try -- with more or less success -- to penetrate from the upper, controlled level into that lower, resisting level, to drive our good intention further and further down into it. What we call "lower level" is not quite so simple; it is, rather, many levels extending down into the semiconscious, the subconscious, the unconscious. Who then would dare to claim that his inner disposition is wholly good?  The goodness which we can answer for extends as far as consciousness, and then slips into the unknown. Our effort and struggle is to carry this goodness further and further into ourselves, and from this experience we gain some intimation of what is meant by "the cleansing of the conscience," and "the purification of the heart" spoken of by the spiritual masters. But what a task it is to make the will good -- all the way through!

When a man dies and comes before God, how will it be with his inner disposition? Suppose a man had taken a wrong direction, had not bothered himself about God, then later, perhaps much later, had become converted? He has done something which Scripture tells us the angels rejoice over. As far as his ability reaches he has changed his disposition. But what about the depths below consciousness? It is thus with everyone, even the "ninety and nine just men who have no need of repentance" (Luke 15:7). It applies equally to the man who falls continually, but who does not lose his inmost will to good, and to the man who by working tirelessly makes obvious headway...Let us allow the matter to rest here for a moment.

Man is morally obliged to be good. That is to say, at decisive moments he must desire to do right, he must have a right disposition. But this is not all. To intend good, to make a decision in favor of the good is only the beginning. To be good means more. Not only must the motive be good, but also the act, indeed, one's very being. The motive must press on from its first position where things are managed with such mysterious ease into the wider sphere of things and forces, of business and contacts, of development and self-fulfillment.

I should, for example, not only decide in favor of truth, but I should also speak the truth. But what does speaking the truth mean? First, I must use truthful words without inner reservation. Behind words may lurk crooked intentions, deceptions, cowardice. The will to truth must reach them, and do away with them. And if I wish to translate my honest desire for truth into action, I must pierce below the upper, more easily comprehensible level, into an ever-deepening one. And I should be through with the task only when my whole living being had been brought under the sway of truthfulness, when my good intention had penetrated the inmost motions of my soul, those depths where lie hidden all that is dark, contradictory, rebellious and evil to which my view had not attained. Who then would dare claim to be perfectly truthful? And when a man dies--how will he come before God?

But we must go still further. It is required of us not only to do what is good, but to be good. For man's being, his physical, temperamental, intellectual being, serves as raw material. And this material is not only unformed, it is rebellious. It is confused, in many ways unclean. It has to be thoroughly worked over by the inner disposition, given direction, brought completely under control.

When we examine ourselves further, we have the impression that we have laid hold upon but a very thin layer of our living being; what lies beneath is like soil as yet uncut by the plow. An overwhelming task-becoming good! And what must the saints have accomplished! A saint is a person whose whole being has been set in motion, illumined to the very depths and transformed. What shall we say to that? How can we approach God? And we have not yet reached the end.

Being good means still more. We believe that we are guided by God's providence. Day after day brings the tasks which God has assigned to us, labor, work, struggle, sacrifice-heavy, unceasing demands--we know how seldom we fulfill them adequately. To be and wholly good would mean perfectly to achieve what every hour demands, so that life might rise to the full accomplishment of what God asks of us.

What is not done cannot be recalled, for each day comes but once, and the next day brings its own tasks. What of the gaps and omissions in the life that is gone by? And what of the actual wrong-doing? We can see the defects and try to do better, but  what is done is done and remains in being. What will be done about that?

When a man comes before God into the light of His truth which discloses everything, into the power of God's holiness which repels everything unholy--what happens then?

The Faith teaches that God accepts the man of good will whose inner disposition has been acted upon by grace. He gives him a share in the righteousness of Christ, and envelops him in His own holiness. But what does that mean? God does not act so that underneath the imputed righteousness and holiness all the evil and ugliness remain. He does not merely cast a cloak over all the filth. "But," someone replies, "God forgives the sin."

Again, what does God's forgiveness mean? Surely not what is implied when one man says to another: "I forgive you the injury." For this forgiveness leaves the being of the offender unchanged. It means merely, "I hold nothing further against you." Surely God's forgiveness must mean much more. Some change must take place within the man who has committed the wrong.

We could say that God's love creates the man anew. Ultimately that is certainly true, yet we must be careful. God is almighty, but not a magician. God's love creates, but creates in reality. God gives man a "new heart" and a "new life," but He does not render undone what has been done. Here is a gap that calls for a change, a purification, a recovery, and now we have arrived at the point we set out to reach.

When a man dies, he leaves time. The "day" has gone in which he can "do the works of God" (John 9:1-4). But can no further change take place in him? Not in one who has fully crossed over into eternity, for in eternity he stands in the pure present of eternal life. And just as little can there be a change in him who, by a life governed by an evil will, is fixed in the final condition of eternal death. But what about the man in whom there was good will, but whose will had not yet, or had not sufficiently, affected his entire being? One whose intentions had penetrated only a little below the surface beneath which there was still resistance, and in the depths of which there was still evil and impurity, in whose life everywhere was much that was unfulfilled and incomplete, much destruction wrought by wrong-doing? The man can no longer act, replies the Church, but he can suffer. His suffering comes from the state in which he finds himself, and is a means of overcoming that state.

When such a man enters into God's light, he sees himself as God sees him. He loves God's holiness and hates himself because he contradicts it. He feels his condition fully. He may have suspected it before, but now he actually knows and feels it. He experiences himself as one before God, and the experience must be one of inconceivable pain. But his suffering is effective. His intention clarifies and expands until it reaches the fullness of good will; it penetrates into the vital forces and inflames them until they attain to the state of pure readiness. It acts upon his being until the man not only desires to be good, but until goodness has become the form of his reality. In this process of becoming, dying and living again are bound up in a wonderful, terrifying mystery. A dying is continually suffered out of which the new life springs.

The process extends even to what was empty by omissions. This is not magic which creates fictitious reality, an illusion. In the creature's oneness with the transforming will of God and here God's creative work is actually carried on, for what we are speaking of is His work of grace, though a work accomplished through man's freedom--in the creature's profound fusion with God's holy will, that which has been omitted will be restored.

Otherwise, there would always remain the dregs of despair or resignation. It must be possible for the life not fully lived to be reconstituted, for the truth not perfectly known to be learned, for the love not completely realized to be fulfilled. And this not by any substitute, of course, for a unique happening cannot be replaced -- but is there not in repentance a hint of the mystery of recovery? For what is true repentance? Not pain only over failure, for that would but emphasize the gaps. Not determination only to do better next time, for that would leave what had happened unchanged.

In repentance a man takes up what has been, penetrates it with his understanding and judges it with his reason, his will and intention. And this he does before God, the Living One, the Holy One. In this act he does more than merely facing his sin. The injury is freely admitted and thereby re-determined, it is drawn into the beginning of the "new creation" which comes into being through the power of the Holy Spirit, and is transformed by Him...

Let us think here of the psychotherapist's view, according to which a wrong response to some challenge, either in early youth or at some other impressionable period, may fasten and fester below the level of consciousness, in the unconscious, and from that point of vantage affect a whole life destructively. Then nothing can help but the reconstitution of what has been wrongly lived. The person must face it squarely, make amends for it in so far as he is able. This done, his life is once more restored to proper order.

Here is our clue. In the case we have been considering we are concerned with the re-constituting of life. God's judgment means that the man sees himself wholly in God's light, sees the conditions and the causes--the accidental and the essential, the exterior, the interior and the innermost, what one has known before and what was hidden, whether because it lay too deep, or whether because it had been forgotten, suppressed or deflected-all this he sees without the least shield of protection.

What formerly made him impervious -- pride, vanity, resistance, indifference -- all these are gone. He is entirely open, sensitive to feeling, and at the same time completely composed. He wills. He stands on the side of truth against himself. He is ready to face up against things in his own life -- all the neglected things, the half-done, the confused. In this mysterious suffering the heart gives itself up to contrition and delivers itself over to the holy might of the creative Spirit. As a result, the omitted is re-bestowed, the false action restored to order; that which had been done wrongly is brought back into the good. It is not outwardly imposed, but inwardly, so that everything passes through repentance and arises anew.

This is the purification of which the Church speaks. No rightly disposed heart can say it doe not apply to itself. Does not what is deepest in us respond with gratitude to the fact that this will be granted to us? And does one not say to one's self: How I wish I had got so far!

From this point of view it will be seen in how many ways our concept of the departed has become distorted. The expression "Poor Souls," though devout and charged with loving solicitude, contains much that is petty and belittling. The dead in the hand of God do not, as such, call for pity. They are undergoing inconceivable suffering, but a suffering that inspires awe.

If a person whom we love very much had taken a wrong course, and were, one day, to see the light, and we should see him in the throes of suffering, of undergoing a great change, should we pity him? Rather, we should yearn over him, should bear his pain with him, knowing always that something tremendous was taking place and hold it in the deepest reverence. We must, therefore, erase from our ideas about the departed all pettiness, all that may express man's secret desire to see the suffering of another, all busying of one's self with "helping" them, all importunate pleading for mercy. Scripture teaches us other-wise, so also does the liturgy of the Church. These are the sons and daughters of God who are undergoing affliction, but who, at the same time, are in expectation of their triumphant entry into glory.

Concern for them is good. And the picture which we have just evoked can point us the way. If we were standing beside someone dear to us who was fighting his way to the good, we should certainly long to help him, but not by reminders and small practical devices. We should try to understand him, share in his suffering, be close to him inwardly, and, when he needed it, stretch out our hand to give him any real help in our power...

Of course we should help our brothers and sisters who are enduring the pains of penance, but not, as it were, by tossing them alms. Not as if something we were to do here would become effective beyond the grave. We should know about them in the Faith, stand by them lovingly, implore that power, the love of the Holy Spirit whose work it is to transform, to burn within them with increasing strength, to reach to the very roots of their being, to draw them into the beginning of transformation, and to establish them in holiness. And someone more advanced in the love of God, more deeply consecrated to the mystery of Christ, may consider that this creative suffering arises from the redemption, and seek to unite his own love and suffering to the redeeming will of Christ.