One time while I was waiting in the cemetery to bury someone, I decided to take a walk around the cemetery and read some interesting epitaphs on tombstones. One epitaph struck me, and I took a picture of it. It said: "Remember me as you pass by. As you are now, so once was I. As I am now, one day you'll be. So stop and say a prayer for me." This simple epitaph highlights something about what we celebrate today, All Souls Day. It's not simply a call to pray for our deceased loved ones. It's also an awakening to our own mortality and reflection on our ultimate inheritance. This feast of All Souls reminds us of many important things about our faith and our journey back to God.
Last Thursday, as we were hanging the banners that you see in the sanctuary and I was going through the names, I can’t help but recall my own personal experiences with most of them and their families, whether it was during their anointing or last rite, during their funeral preparations or their actual funerals. Some have left us after a long period of illness, which could sometimes be perceived as a welcome release from pain and suffering; some of them have left us after a ripe old age; some are from the same families, leaving their loved ones one after another; and some have left us with incredible sorrow because they died tragically. Behind some of those names are families who find consolation and hope in their faith; behind some of the names are families who continue to struggle with the loss of their loved one and continue to grapple with answers as to why the Lord took them so soon and in a tragic way. So, as we remember them, we also remember their families, we keep them close to our hearts and minds that God’s love and mercy embrace them. As we reflect on death and on our own mortality, we do so not with fear or despair, but with hope, just as we heard in the first reading today: “The souls of the just are in the hand of God.” “And this is the will of the one who sent me, that I should not lose
anything of what he gave me, but that I should raise it on the last day.” For those who are still struggling with the loss of a loved one, our faith doesn’t try to offer us words of explanation because we know that words, no matter how profound they are, still fall short in grasping our incredible loss and sorrow. In the face of our suffering and pain, the Christian faith doesn’t arrogantly give solutions. Faith doesn’t merely give us words of consolation, but gives us a person! Faith gives us divine companionship. He gave us his Son Jesus Christ! God became like us, and he too died! In our own wrestling with death and loss, God accompanies us because his Son died as well. In our deepest loss and
sorrow, God offers not words, but his divine solidarity and companionship. And so, we are given new hope, because life is not ended in death but is only transformed. And, death has no final say because Jesus conquered death, and our inheritance is heaven, eternal life with God. Yes, we belong to God, so let’s start claiming and living heaven here. It’s not a prize in the end, but a state of life that begins right here. Live a life that is worthy of heaven now. Eternal rest grant unto the souls of the faithful departed, O Lord and let perpetual light shine upon them, may they rest in peace. Amen.
– Fr. Cary