Regarding All Souls’ Day and the month of November, the following quote from Saint Alphonsus’ Practice of the Love of Jesus Christ (Ch XIV, #14) is appropriate to the theme of the unity of the Church under three states (Heaven, Purgatory, on Earth):

Some people, when they lose a parent or a friend, can find no peace. They shut themselves up in their room and weep and, abandoning themselves to their sadness, become so impatient that they becomes impossible to deal with. I would ask these persons, when they grieve in this way and shed such storms of tears, whom are they trying to please? God? Not God, because God wants us to resign ourselves to his will. The departed soul? Once again, no. If the soul is lost [to hell], she hates you and your tears; if she has been saved and is already in heaven, she wishes you to thank God for herself. If she is in purgatory, she desires you to help her with your prayers and to become a saint, so that one day she may have you for a companion in paradise.

(Of course, grieving is natural. Saint Alphonsus is not saying it is altogether wrong to grieve, for Jesus himself has shed tears. But naturalizing the natural aspect, without reference to heaven and purgatory, is not “natural” for the Christian.)

The three states of the Church are linked in one Church. Any other vision of the life to come and how to live our present life is deficient. And what is demanded by the vision of the unity of the Church under three states? That we love, unite our wills to Jesus’, and, because of all that, become saints as soon as possible. We can pray, as Alphonsus himself often prayed and in his writings encouraged others to pray, “O God, you are all-powerful. Make me a saint.”