It is only a few months
since your husband or wife died, or perhaps your parents who lived with you, or
maybe it was your child. You get
up from the sofa in the living room to go to the kitchen, and for a split
second you think you see him or her.
Then you remember, “No, Mom passed away two months ago.” Or you go to Grandpa and Grandma’s
house. Only Grandma is not there;
she passed away recently. But in an unguarded moment, in the blink of an eye,
with a quick glance, you think you see her there. These are common
occurrences. Certain places or
events can trigger our memory in such a powerful way that the person we
remember seems present. Now, some people will say, “Mom’s gone.” or “She’s just
a memory, but she isn’t here any more,” and do their best to move on with
life. We Christians do more than
that, though. Much more. For us Christians the everyday event of
sensing the presence of our departed loved ones reminds us of a wonderful reality:
our loved ones still live. Really alive! The flashback to their presence in our
lives often leads us to say a
prayer for them. Perhaps we might say, “May she rest in peace, united to
the Lord forever in the peace of Christ.” Why do we pray for our deceased loved
ones? Why do we have this
celebration today, the Commemoration of All Souls? Why do we dedicate the month of November to praying for the
dead? Why do we have funeral Masses? We do all these things because we believe
in the power of prayer. We believe
that our continual entreaty to God to bring our loved ones to peace will
prepare them to bear the fullness of His Love in heaven. We pray because we
believe in love. We believe that
true love, the love that flows from God and returns to Him, true love remains
forever. We sincerely loved the members
of our family, our friends and all who have died. And we still love them. This love which is looking for nothing other than to express
itself is sacrificial love. It is
loving as Jesus loved. We are not expecting anything in return. We just want to express our love
others. We do this through prayer.
And God hears our prayers and sees the love motivated by those who have died. Some
of these loved ones are fully united to Him now. They are the saints, be they
canonized by the Church, babies and little children, or older children, Teens
and adults all who died with lives so pure, so sincere, that they are ready to
endure the blaze of His Love. Some
of our loved ones are not ready to enter into His Presence. The results of their sins is still
affecting them. Just like an arm broken many years ago still hurts when the
weather changes, the deceased who is forgiven his or her sins still suffers the
result of the sin. But God’s love
is motivated by the love this person inspired in others, seen in their constant
prayer. These prayers lead Him to
heal the results of sin, or as we say in the terminology of the Church, to free
them from Purgatory. This was presented beautifully and succinctly by Dante
Alighieri in the second book of the Divine Comedy, The Purgatorio. There he presents the souls in
purgatory as holding themselves back from climbing the mountain of God until
they are able to accept the fulness of His Love. They are dependent on the prayers of their loved ones still
on earth to prepare them to receive the fire of God’s love. The power of prayer
is far greater, infinitely greater than we could ever imagine. Often when we pray we call on the
strength of the Almighty One to perform an action beyond our capabilities, but
not beyond His. Today we pray that
the Lord heals the wounds of all who are not yet ready to enter into the
fulness of His presence. May
they be healed. May any part of
their lives that have been closed to Love be completely open to the Presence of
God. So we pray today for our deceased parents, spouses, children, relatives,
and friends. We know that they
were good people. But we also know
that they were people. We want
them to be capable of receiving the full blast of God’s love; so we pray for
them. We celebrate funeral Masses,
for that is the prayer of Jesus on the Cross for the deceased, the greatest
prayer we could offer. We
have additional Masses said for our loved ones throughout the year. We remember them in our daily
prayers. And we pray for them
particularly on today, All Souls Day, and throughout the month of November. We
are all united in the Community of the Church. We are united to the saints in their triumph. We are united with the souls in
purgatory in their preparation for triumph. And the saints in heaven and the souls in purgatory are
united with us in our efforts to make Christ a reality in our world. “I will reject no one who comes to me,”
the Lord said in our gospel for today[1].
We trust in the God who loves us to care for us and our loved ones in life and
in death. And so we pray, “May the souls of the faithful departed through the
mercy of God rest in peace” • AE
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