The Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed (All Souls)
Wisdom 3:1-9
Romans 5:5-11 or 6:3-9
John 6:37-40

My sister-in-law and my niece are in the midst of a concerted effort to fill in the branches of our family tree. Everyday I get another email saying that more information has been supplied. The effort is especially reassuring to those of us who are single. Sooner rather than later, we will be only names in the family Bible. Maybe this is why I have a special love for All Souls Day.

For me, All Souls Day is something like a Roman Catholic Thanksgiving Day when we remember and pray for those who have built the Church in generations before us. They were people like ourselves who—for the most part — built no monuments and achieved no fame, but who loved the Church. As long as there is an All Souls Day, those who have preceded us will be remembered. They will be integrated into our prayers and memory as we celebrate the Church that is and the Church that will be.

We “do not know the day or the hour.” Today’s death notices name people who celebrated this liturgy last year—perhaps with us. Most of them did not expect that they would be part of today’s All Souls Day remembrance. Perhaps we will be among the community remembered next year. The Gospel tells us that Jesus’ love is revealed in his community. He lives in us. Our remembrance is a remembrance of God’s love incorporated into the lives of those who have gone before us. “Christ Jesus, who died or rather was raised up, who is at the right hand of God intercedes for us,” the First Reading announces. Because we die with Christ, we can be certain that neither death nor life will separate us from the love of God.

All Saints Day and All Souls Day are most appropriately celebrated together. They are days to remember those who have no special day on the church calendar but are at the roots of our faith. These are the people who are part of the growth of the Church we know today, the ones who before us waited in joyful hope for the coming of the Lord.

There are special people we remember at this liturgy...friends and family. We would remember them even if this were not All Souls’ Day. There is nostalgia and loneliness mixed in our prayers for them. But today’s liturgy is about a wider community. Most especially, our liturgy today is a joyful one filled with thanksgiving for many people we are unable to name.

We gather at the altar to give thanks and praise to God for the community he guides through the ages and for the feeble instruments, like ourselves, he uses. In a special way, we pray for those whose names have no prominent place in history but who are part of the living legacy of the Church today.