Beyond the Thin Veil

Photo Credit: Catholic Answers Encyclopedia

During November, the Roman Catholic faith encourages prayers for those who have gone before us and acknowledgement of those who have achieved the heights of sanctity, notably the saints. For ordinary folk who have died we pray that they be freed from the state of purgatory where any lingering repentance is erased and poof! they’re off to heaven. I don’t know why (though I have some hunches as to why) souls in purgatory are often referred to as “the poor souls in purgatory.” Hey. They made it! The next doorway is heaven. Why are they ‘poor’? But it goes with the prayers we had to recite as children. We bowed our heads, looked formidably serious, and thought about those souls, oh those poor, wretched souls floundering in minimal flames maybe just embers as they are not in hell, reaching for the gates but unable to enter. They fall to their knees and are crying at the sound of the gates slamming shut. To our little minds it was as horrible as making it to Mr. Weber’s candy shop just as he turned the key at closing time.

But I’m glad I persevered in praying for my deceased loved ones because over the years I’ve learned much more about death and its afterlife and the heaping, thrilling, bountiful love of God that awaits us. I’ll be brief, but here is some of what I have learned: Writer of contemplative spirituality, James Finley, says, “When we die, we don’t go anywhere, but rather we cross over into unmediated, infinite union with God.” (Richard Rohr Newsletter, Online, October 2025) We simply move into more of God without anything. ‘Unmediated,’ means not relying on argument or debate or on all the good we have done or any possessions or fame we may have acquired. ‘Unmediated,’ means we come to God the way we came into the world, needing only to be held by love. In death, we won’t have a need to learn more about God because we will recognize Him immediately; God’s love is God’s image, and we will see Love. But, related to purgatory, theologian, the late Ladislas Orsy wrote a description of it that has stayed with me for fifty years. He claimed that when we die, and we gaze on God, this look will generate such love between ourselves and God, that these two loves, staring at each other, create a fire that burns away any inadequacy or ‘sin’, and we are then in heaven. Might this be the phenomenon we often witness as a dying person suddenly reaches out toward an ephemeral ‘something’ and opens his or her eyes with an uncommon lucidity before closing them in death? Did the person reach for God? Reach for the embrace? Reach for Love? I think so.

Respected and renowned theologian, the late Hans Kung, says that we Christians should opt to live a ‘resurrection faith,’ a faith of the ‘unmediated,’ as Finley named it, a faith without “strictly rational proof but certainty with reasonable trust…that the God of the beginning is also the God of the end, that as he is the Creator of the world, he is also the Finisher.” (On Being a Christian, p. 360.) In other words, death moves us into the perfection of our faith as it did Jesus. We will be united with the Creator who placed us on earth for a reason and rewards us with a constant unraveling of a beautiful revelation of new life in Love. That is all we know. Praying for the dead is not lost; its grace flourishes somewhere.

Reflection

Since this past May I have attended funerals and memorials for dear friends on average of one a month. I was fortunate to be at the hospice bedside of one friend, and I now accompany another. When I was present, I was graced to feel the unmistakable Presence of Another, Someone beyond the grieving people struggling to understand what was happening in the room. This Someone held the dying person. The persons around the bed were deep in reflection, silent; the veil of consciousness was disappearing for the dying one as our own consciousness dissolved into tears of letting go. We could not see through the veil.

Many people refuse to believe that death happens this way. Many say there is no afterlife, no God. Most people, however, do wonder about death, especially as they age. In an interview shortly before she died, Jane Goodall, the famous primatologist, was asked if she thought there was an afterlife. Goodall implied she had not been a particularly religious person, but she came to realize that each person is created for a purpose to do good on earth. Once, when she had been thinking of her purpose in life and recalled the loss of her husband, she suddenly saw him standing before her smiling. He simply told her he was fine. She did not doubt this vision. It was affirmation of her purpose and his afterlife. (The Last Interview with Jane Goodall, Netflix, recently released)

A dear friend and recognized poet and writer, the late Diane Vreuls, was a deeply religious thinker who engaged with me in many conversations about faith, life, death. Her husband, Stuart Friedman, was also a writer and a recognized translator of German literature. He was ebullient and downright funny as I shared conversation with them in the warmth of candles and good wine. They died fairly close in time to each other and had donated their bodies to a medical school for research. So it was that last June I reflected on the power of faith and death as we covered the urn containing their ashes with the earth they revered and treasured. Immediately, I thought of Diane’s last haiku and her faith which aptly fits an ‘unmediated,’ ‘resurrection faith and death.’

Faith

Is the door

That keeps blowing open. (Fall by Diane Vreuls)

This little haiku might inspire you all week. It is so simple but powerful. Put it in context of prayers for the dying and the glorious promise our loved ones enjoy. What does it say to you?