It Is a Good and Holy Thing to Pray for Your Dad

We Catholics are grateful for the dogma of Purgatory. It's that "place" en route to Heaven where those souls who need a little cleaning up prior to seeing The Big Guy get spiffed up. I often think of the movie The Wizard of Oz where Dorothy and friends have made it to the Emerald City, but they need to be cleaned up to see The Wizard. We find in 2 Maccabees 12: 45-46:

"...for if he were not expecting the fallen to rise again, it would have been useless and foolish to pray for them in death. But if he did this with a view to the splendid reward that awaits those who had gone to rest in godliness, it was a holy and pious thought. Thus he made atonement for the dead that they might be freed from this sin."

Today, I was pleasantly surprised that the Mass was being offered for my dad. I'm sure that in the flurry of cards I received last July after his death that some kind soul offered a Mass for his happy repose. Because our church is growing so large and there are a finite number of Masses each year, it took this long to get Dad's Mass on the roster. I have confidence that if Dad is not already in Heaven, he can probably smell it from where he's at. Today's Mass either helped him along the way, or some other poor soul who needed it worse. In what could merely be happenstance, a couple of the songs really reminded me of Dad. We sang all five verses of Amazing Grace and the offertory song was Tommy Dorsey's Precious Lord, Take My Hand. I don't recall hearing that particular hymn at our church in a very long time. And Dad will forever spring to mind whenever I hear big band music or the holier incantations from its musicians.

Hey, Dad, this Mass was for you.