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Thirtieth Sunday of the Year
26 October 2008
Praised be Jesus Christ! Now and forever!
Dear Friends in Christ,
November is often referred to as the Month of the Dead, and the two feasts next weekend remind us why.
November 1st is the Solemnity of All Saints, usually a holy day of obligation, though not this year because the feast falls on a Saturday. This feast originated in the fourth century as the Solemnity of All Martyrs, and in 835 Pope Gregory IV extended this observance to the entire Western Church. Since the ninth century this feast has been kept on November 1st, a date chosen to counter a pagan festival of the Druids in Britain and Ireland. This feast celebrates the share in Christ’s glory given to all the holy men and women who have been redeemed by the Lord Jesus and participate even now in the heavenly liturgy of the Wedding Feast of the Lamb. The old English expression for All Saints is All Hallows, and the eve of All Hallows is Halloween. The contemporary secular observance of Halloween is unintelligible without the Christian Solemnity of All Saints, and we should make every effort to teach our children the connection between the two dates and stress the importance of venerating the saints, our victorious brothers and sisters in Christ.
November 2nd is the Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed (All Souls). This observance is even more ancient than the Solemnity of All Saints, and its roots go to the second century. The Abbey of Cluny in France established this date for All Souls in 988, and in the thirteenth century the pope extended the commemoration to the whole Western Church. In this annual remembrance of the dead, the Church prays for those who have died in the grace of Christ but do not yet stand before the Lamb in the heavenly liturgy. The process of purgation after death is not a temporary hell; it is simply the final preparation of the souls of the dead for the glorious and beatific vision of God. Only those who are justified by faith in Christ experience this continuing process of sanctification by Christ after death as a prelude to glorification by Christ.
The Church encourages us to pray for the dead during November and to visit the graves of our family and friends for this purpose. The twin feasts of All Saints and All Souls remind us that not even death can separate us from Christ or His Church.
Father Newman
Our Lady of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, pray for us.