11/2/2011 – Homily for All Souls Day – John 6:37-40; Wisdom 3:1-9

      From the days of the early Church, prayers for the faithful departed were encouraged as an act of Christian charity.  In fact, St Augustine of Hippo, one of our Church’s great theologians, once said: “If we had no care for the dead, we would not be in the habit of praying for them.”  However, since there were so many superstitions regarding the dead attached to different pagan religions, a liturgy specifically set aside for praying for the faithful departed did not become a part of our Church’s traditions until the Middle Ages.  Today, All Souls Day is a very beloved tradition in our Church, as evidenced by the blessing of the graves we have at my parishes in Yazoo City and Belzoni in the Mississippi Delta. 

         Since we as Christians always strive toward perfection, but do not achieve it during our lives here on earth, we still retain the scars of our sinfulness when we enter enteral life with Christ.  Thus, we are in need of a process of purification after our earthly existence ends before we are unified with God.  So, today, our prayers go out to those departed souls who are in this process of purification. 

         Our reading from Wisdom today supports the Christian belief we have in eternal life.  Wisdom states that many in our world erroneously believe that our lives end with our existence here on earth, but the truth is that the souls of the just are in the hand of the Lord where no torment can touch them. 

         When I was in the jungles of Ecuador as a missionary, All Souls Day was a national holiday that was celebrated with great joy and fervor throughout the country.  They even had a special drink that they would drink that day called cola morada, that was made with berries and grains such as quinoa.  The people there believed that their dearly departed loved ones would be present to them in a special way on All Souls Day.   We in the West, however, with all of our technology and scientific knowledge, perhaps have lost the belief in the world of the spirits that the societies in Latin America and Africa still have retained.  Yet, just as we celebrated the community of saints yesterday on All Saints Day, today on All Souls Day we send up our prayers for the purification of the souls of the faithful departed, as they have entered the eternal life that we believe that we have in Christ.  Yes, indeed, we lift our prayers up for them.