November 2 2017 – All Souls Day – Romans 5:5-11, Psalm 23:1-6, John 6:37-40

      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.

11/2/2015 – All Souls Day – Wisdom 3:1-9, John 6:37-40

      The commemoration of All Saints Day and All Souls Day in our liturgical year on November 1 and November are important occasions that remind us that we as a Church belong to an extended family that's not limited by time or space.  Yesterday, on the first day of November, we celebrated the saints of our Church: both the famous saints who've been beatified or canonized, those known throughout the world, but also those saints who are less well-known, those we may have been known personally in own our lives before they entered eternal life, or those whose faith was known to only God alone.   On today's celebration of All Souls Day, we remember in our prayers those souls who have died and who are still in a state of purification, those who are still in need of our prayers.

      Our first reading from the book of Wisdom stands up against the common belief in the ancient world that life ends with death.   The book of Wisdom assures us that the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, that torment won't touch them.  The foolish of the world believe that the righteous have come to their end in death, but Wisdom assures us that they are now at peace with God.  We Christians believe that all those who share in the Spirit in baptism become one in the Body of Christ, that we are united in that Body both in life and in death.  In eternal life in heaven, in a state of purification, or on earth, the faithful are united as members of the Body of Christ: we're all connected to one another.   We're called as part of that Body to pray for the souls who are in a state of purification.  We believe with all our hearts that the community of saints helps us with its intercessory prayers. 

       In today's reading from the Gospel of John, we are told that if we live in faith, we enter into a relationship of life and love with the Father, the Son, and the Spirit of God.  As disciples, there is a mutual in-dwelling: we live in the Father and the Son, and the Father and the Son live in us.  This mutual indwelling leads us to eternal life.  In our faith, we begin a relationship with God the Father and God the Son: this relationship continues into eternal life.

       God always meets us in the reality of our lives.  This year, we may have had a loved one who has died recently, or we may particularly feel a void in our lives of a loved one who passed away many years ago, but whose presence here on earth we still miss so achingly.  We may miss a parent or spouse who has passed away or a child who passed away at a young age.  No matter where we are on our journey, our faith meets us both in the good times and the difficult times, in all we experience in our lives.  It is in this context that we celebrate the Feast of All Souls, to pray for those souls who have touched our lives, for our loved ones who are now in eternal life.  We experience grief, sadness, and pain at the death of a loved one, but we should also feel a sense of thanksgiving, thanking God for those who have blessed us on earth with their lives.  May we continue to pray for those souls in a state of purification not only today, but throughout the year.