All Saints and All Souls

I want to take a break talking about the Papal Visit to chat with you about the feasts of All Saints and All Soul’s.  These are two days set apart by the Church to honor those who have gone before us.

When I think about All Saint’s Day, I can’t help but reflect on all of the people who are every day Saints in my life, especially after listening to Father’s homily today.  My life has been so richly blessed with people who are faithful to God and spread the Gospel message by the way they live and care for others.

St. Francis of Assisi is quoted as saying “Teach the Gospel at all times, if necessary, use words.”  Some of the Saints in my life are gifted with “word” and some are gifted in “deed” and God also put along my journey friends who are gifted in both word and deed.  Through all of these Saints, I have learned to know, love and serve God.  Through their example I have come to learn that the best way to see God here on earth is to see him in others.  I feel like this is the very reason that the church decided to begin to canonize holy men and women, so that we could have shining examples to look toward in our quest to fulfill the purpose for which we were made; to know, love and serve God.  In our human weakness, we often fall short of this goal, however, when we look to the lives of the Saints, we learn that despite their human weakness, they gave all of their heart and soul to following the will of God. Perhaps this is the call to sainthood, to live every day remembering that we should love God before all else.

I love when we hear the names of the parishioners who have passed from this earthly existence spoken during Mass.  I cherish this ritual, and as each candle is lit, I picture their face and remember them.  When I was young, I would get confused about the day of All Soul’s.  I used to think that it was a day we prayed for all people.  If Sister Thomas Marie were reading this, I am sure that she would shake her finger at me again and say, now Christine, you know we have learned about this already!  The feast is actually called “The Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed.”  I suppose if I remembered that instead of the more commonly used name “All Soul’s Day” it would have been easier for me to remember that this was a day set apart to pray for our dead.  As I prepare my heart to attend a prayer service this evening to hear the name of my mother spoken, I got to thinking about all those souls who have no one to pray for them.  I thought of the homeless and children who die of hunger.  I thought of the disappeared and the prisoners of war.  Who will read their names this day to commemorate their life?  Who will speak for those souls who were never given the opportunity to be named?  Thinking of these souls make the prayer for the dead even more important to me.  “May their souls and all the souls of the faithful departed through the mercy of God, rest in peace” takes on a deeper meaning for me when I think of “all the souls.”

I pray that each one of us remembers that every decision we make; every act of anger and every little act of kindness effects the life of another.  This afternoon we watched the movie “The Five People You Meet in Heaven.”  At the end of the movie, the narrator reminds us that “Each affects the other, and the other affects the next, and the world is full of stories, but the stories are all one.” (Mitch Albom, The Five People You Meet in Heaven)  May we share what makes our stories one ~ the love that God has for us!  May we strive to be saints!

Shalom,

Tina