We just celebrated All Saints Day on November 1st and All Souls Day on November 2nd. For this month’s reflection, I would like to focus on these two special days of our faith tradition.
Fr. Thomas Iwanowski, in his reflection for All Saints’ Day, reminds us of an ad used by Ancestry.com which many of us are familiar with. And the ad says, “Every family has a story. Find yours.” As we know, ancestry.com allows us to access a database with more than 10 billion historical records. And using their service, people can do genealogical research and build their family tree without the need to travel to various countries and locations to search for records of births, marriages, deaths, military service, educational achievements and many other things. As we research Ancestry.com, we may discover that we are related to famous individuals who have made their mark on history. We can point to those famous people who came before us with pride and we would want everyone to know that we are related.
Fr. Iwanowski reminds us that on the feast of All Saints, the Catholic Church celebrates its ancestry. On this feast day, we recall the members of our church family who have gone before us and who did their best to live as faithful followers of Christ and we became part of that family of faith, at our baptism. The Feast of All Saints reminds us that our family is not limited to here on earth. It goes beyond. Saints are part of our family. And some of these saintly ancestors could be our own parents, grandparents, god parents, aunts and uncles, teachers and mentors, friends, people from our neighborhood and township, or our own church people. All those women and men of faith, who sacrificed for us and passed on their faith to us. There are millions of them, spanning every century and every generation since the beginning of the Church.
Dear friends, Ancestry.com can give people reasons to take pride in their family history. All Saints’ Day reminds us of the pride we should have, to be part of a Church whose family tree is filled with holy, loving, faithful, generous, and remarkably good people. We are part of a family filled with ancestors who are saints!
In the Catholic church, the month of November is set aside to commemorate all the faithful departed. We celebrate masses in the cemeteries and in almost all of our churches, we have memorial masses and services remembering all the faithful departed, especially those who have passed during the year.
Why do we need to pray for them? We know that many people die leaving behind – unhealed relationships, wrongs never quite made right, conversations never completed. Therefore, the church teaches us that there is a place or state of purification called purgatory, where the souls undergoing purification can be helped by the prayers of the faithful to enter into a perfect union and peace with God, because, according to the Book of Revelation, chapter 21 verse 27, “nothing unclean shall enter the heavens.”.
One of the prayers of the funeral liturgy reads: “We believe that all the ties of friendship and affection which knit us as one throughout our lives do not unravel with death.” So, the saints who are part of our family who we know for sure are with God, pray for us. And we pray for the faithful departed, the part of our family who are on their way to God but not yet – because we believe that relationships continue, that life continues even after death. Jesus says in John’s gospel, “For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him may have eternal life.”
So, let us pray: Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord. And let perpetual light shine upon them. May they rest in peace. Amen. May the souls of all the faithful departed through the mercy of God rest in peace. Amen
Father Sanjai
