I was a missionary in Ecuador for about a year when my dad passed away in southern California. At the time, I was serving at a very remote mission site that had no telephone at all. My sister contacted the provincial house of our missionary order in the capital city of Quito to notify me. I finally got the news via a CB radio, a message that had to pass through many different missionary priests in order for it to finally reach me in the jungle. It took me several days of travel, but I was able to make it back for the funeral, which really meant a lot to me. However, since my dad was buried in Chicago, and the funeral was in California, I was not able to go to his gravesite until several years later when I had completed my term as a missionary and returned once again to the US. I placed a small wooden cross at his gravesite in Rosehill cemetery in Chicago that my students in Ecuador had made, as well as a rosary that I had gotten in Ecuador. It was important to me to honor him in that way, to remember him as I continued on my journey as a missionary. I think all of us want to remember, honor, commemorate, and pray for our deceased loved ones in a special way, which is the reason that the two day celebration of All Saints Day and All Souls Day is so popular.
Paul speaks about the virtue hope in his letter to the Romans, stating that this hope we have will not disappoint us, because it has been poured into our hearts by God through the Holy Spirit. Pope Francis says that these two great feasts that we celebrate this week are celebrations of hope. They are to bring hope into our hearts, to be a leaven to our spirits just as we are to be leaven in the world. We all go through difficult moments in our lives, such as the death of a loved one, but with the hope of our faith, we press forward and keep on eyes focused on those eternal truth of God, keeping focused on what awaits us in eternal life. All Souls Day, is a day of hope because we know that our brothers and sisters who died in the love of Christ are in eternal life with him. We place our hope in that eternal life for ourselves. We place our hope that one day we, too, will be in the loving arms of Jesus, the Good Shepherd, that he will lead our souls to eternal rest and refreshment.
Since the days of the Early Church, Catholics have consistently encouraged the offering of prayers and Mass for the souls of the faithful departed in Purgatory. At the time of their death, those souls were not cleansed completely of their past sins nor had they atoned completely for their transgressions, and thus were not ready for unification with God. The faithful here on earth assist these souls in Purgatory in attaining eternal life through our prayers, our good works and the offering up of Mass.
We use All Saints Day and All Souls Day to start our commemoration of November as the month of remembrance, in which we in the Church traditionally remember those who have entered eternal life with our Lord. The act of remembering isn't just a nostalgic look back, but rather a way of building up and maintaining our holy community, of making the love, mercy, and goodness of God present in our lives. We remember in this way each time we celebrate the Eucharist as a community. This week’s remembrance takes on additional significance as we remember the souls of the faithful departed.
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