All Souls' Day

Meditation by: Mr. Dan Eberle

All Souls Day Meditation
Good Morning,
In his essay, Is Theology Poetry, C.S. Lewis stated –“I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen. Not only because I see it, but because I see everything by it.” Lewis’ concept of Christianity can help us better understand the first two days of November. Two days that would seem to speak of death and loss, rather for Christians they are an offer of the hope of Resurrection and Eternal Life.
On November 1st we celebrated All Saints Day. Officially it was instituted by Pope Urban IV, to honor all the saints, known and unknown, and, to insure the celebration of all the saints' feasts during the liturgical year. Basically we are remembering all those who have lived before us who are now with God.
Today, we celebrate the Feast of All Souls, a day we remember those whom we knew and loved, and all who have come before us, living good lives but may not yet be with God. The Church has taught that this is a day to offer Mass and prayers for the souls of the faithfully departed in Purgatory.
These are the official reason for these special days, but like Lewis’ sun, my Christian faith allows me to see these days in a light that gives me an insight into life, my life. My life has been a journey and as I grow older the more I realize that it is not a journey I take alone - making the trip more interesting or as St. Teresa of Avila reminds us, “The feeling remains that God is on the journey, too.” All Saints Day and the Feast of All Souls help us to better understand the journey that we find ourselves traveling.
All Saints Day gives us the opportunity to see what we have the capacity to become. The lives of the Saints offer us an example of how life can be lived. Church history has given us a great variety of saints. They come from 1st Century contemporaries of Jesus to 20th Century humanitarians, from countries that cover almost every part of this planet and a background that include both Popes and Kings but also includes farmers and craftsmen. If a saint is a model of excellence, a Christian Saint cannot be restricted to a single mold. Each saint offers a different path to be taken on life’s journey, to experience life in its fullest. Saints such as St. Matthew the patron Saint of accountants, St. Catherine of Siena, the patron Saint of firefighters or our own St. John Baptist de la Salle the patron Saint of teachers whose differences reveal as much about their sainthood as what they have in common. The message is clear – there are many paths to achieving our potential. But in each instance, they show us at our best, a best that we can achieve.
But today we celebrate All Souls Day, a day that enables us to look at our journey in yet another way. No journey can be understood outside the context of community. Yes, we are on our own personal journey, but we are also the product of a journey taken by those who came before us and share our lives today. Generations that created a world we live in and a society that defines us. Today is a day that we can look to our humanity with all its strengths and weaknesses. We are the product of all the good that humankind has to offer as well as the evil that the world experiences on a daily basis. Today is a day we can take the time to see us as a collective for what we really are, from the height of our potential for good to the depth of our depravity. All Souls Day is not just a day that we focus on the short comings of the loved ones who are no longer with us, but a day when we can measure are own inability to live up to the expectation of the Cross.
But what makes All Souls Day unique among all the days of the Church calendar is that it is the most personal holy day that the Church celebrates. During the liturgical year we recall the important times in the life of Jesus and the Church. We recall the lives of the Saints and other significant individuals in the history of the Church. And just in case we forget anyone we have All Saints Day.
All Souls Day is different, we remember the people in our personal history that have impacted our lives. We remember Grandmothers – Grandfathers – Mothers –Fathers – Brothers –Sisters – Friends & Relatives - and others who have made a difference in our lives and who are no longer with us. In a day and age where the pace of our lives seems to move so quickly and we don’t seem to have time to look back for fear of missing what is yet to come. All Souls Day is a day we can slow down a moment and regain what time may have caused us to lose, an appreciation of the people who were so important to us. It is a day we can remember not only those that we knew and loved but also a time to remember people who may have passed quickly through our life, but we still feel the impact of that moment.
When we remember these people, it is not just a matter of thinking back and recalling events. To truly remember is to relive an experience. We again share, times of happiness, times of hurt, times of love, times of frustration, we bring our past to the present. We go back to times that we can no longer physically share because those friends and relatives are no longer with us but we still feel their presence.
When we remember them in this manner, we remember them to our Heavenly Father. All their good is brought before God and our hope that they will find their place with Him in Heaven. When we place their names in the Book of the Dead we are publicly stating that these friends and relatives have made a difference in our lives and in our world and they should be with all the saints in heaven.
By remembering our past, the Feast of All Souls also points to our future. When we recall those who are no longer with us, it confronts us with our own mortality, an inevitable future we all share. For those who are young (or who see themselves as young) this may seem like a distant experience that is not an immediate concern but this will change with time. For others whose age or life experiences have made this a much more pertinent topic, the future is not so distant. No matter what our circumstances, a Native American proverb best states the challenge of our mortality: “When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced. Live your life in a manner so that when you die the world cries and you rejoice.” All Souls Day, like Ash Wednesday helps to remind us that today may seem like forever - but a lifetime can pass quickly.
All Souls Day is the one day out of the year that we as a community of faith can take the time to slow our lives down long enough to remember those who have helped us to become who we are. We pray for those individuals, who are no longer with us but have left an imprint on us that we continue to feel today. All Souls Day is the day we can honor the personal “saints” in our life, saints whom we pray will find their place with our heavenly Father.


"It is when we notice the dirt that God is most present in us; it is the very sign of His presence." — C.S. Lewis