“The souls of the just are in the hand
of God, and no torment shall touch them.”
This is the opening line from our reading from the book of Wisdom today
as we commemorate the Faithful Departed on All Souls Day today. This day is set aside to pray for all of
those souls who have departed this world and who are going through a
purification process to ready them for unification with God in their state of
eternal life. We pray for these souls
all throughout the year, but today is especially set aside for this occasion. In addition, it is customary for Christians
to use this day to offer prayers on behalf of their departed relatives and
friends.
There are many customs from many
different cultures used to celebrate All Souls Day. In Mexico, Catholics celebrate el Día de los
Muertos (The Day of the Dead), a day that combines Aztec indigenous customs
with the Catholic religion that the Conquistadors brought to that country. Here in our parishes in Yazoo City and in
Belzoni, we have the custom of going out to the graves in the cemetery to offer
a special blessing and prayers at the graves of our loved ones, which is a very
beautiful and touching ceremony, one that I look forward to each year. In many ways, I feel that our prayers for our
deceased loved ones connect us to them.
These prayers are a way for us to show our love and reverence for them,
to keep them alive to us in their role in the Community of Saints that exists
in the Church. Indeed, if we truly
believe the words of the 23rd psalm that is so beloved to so many
Christian believers, we see Jesus as the Good Shepherd leading our dearly
departed loved ones to the refreshing waters of eternal life after their
journey here on earth has ended.
Praying for the dead has always been a
part of our Christian traditions since the days of the early Church. Indeed, we can even find prayers for the dead
inscribed in the catacombs outside of Rome.
Early Christians also believed that their prayers would provide
assistance and encouragement to the souls of their departed loved ones who were
undergoing a process of purification in the afterlife.
Our second reading from Paul’s letter
to the Romans addresses our baptismal promise – how we die with Christ in the
waters of our baptism and how we rise to new life in him in those same
waters. Paul explains that if we are
united with Christ in his resurrection in the waters of baptism, then when our
days here on earth come to an end, we will be united with him in the
resurrection in eternal life. This
confirms our belief that Christ who was raised from the dead indeed lives and
dies no more.
So while we miss the presence of our
loved ones here on earth, we take heart that they our with Christ in eternal
life, and their prayers and intercessions accompany us, just as our prayers and
intercessions go out to them today in a special way on All Souls Day. And we pray for those souls that are still
going through a process of purification, that they one day be fully united with
Christ, who is the life and the resurrection.
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