All Saints & All Souls:
"Great is the multitude, God of all holiness, countless the throng you have assembled from the rich diversity of all earth’s children. With your church in glory, your church in this generation lifts up our hands in prayer, our hearts in thanksgiving and praise. Pattern our lives on the blessedness Jesus taught, and gather us with all the saints into your kingdom’s harvest, that we may stand with them, and clothed in glory, join our voices to their hymn of thanksgiving and praise." (Prayers for Sundays and Seasons – Year A, Liturgical Training Publications, c 1998)
In church tradition, we remember “those who have gone before us, marked with the sign of faith,” especially in this month of November. On All Saints Day we pray with the saints whose exemplary lives are models worthy of our consideration and imitation. On All Souls Day we pray for those who need forgiveness for their sins, and yearn to see God face to face – people just like us.
Monday, November 1st, is All Saints Day. This year, because The Solemnity of All Saints falls on a Monday, it is not a Holy Day of Obligation. For that reason, we will have our normally scheduled Masses at 6:30 and 8:00 a.m.
That means that Sunday, October 31st, is Halloween, the eve of all the hallowed (holy). Our culture seems to suggest that Halloween is about death, and the horrors surrounding dying. In the Catholic Church, our Solemnity of All Saints is a celebration of life…Life in Christ Jesus, who conquered Satan, sin and death, and has opened for us the way to Eternal Life. We do not need to buddy-up to the prince of darkness, nor make nice with the minions of the nether world, in order to negotiate the perils of this life. That certainly is NOT what Jesus did! By our Baptism, “in the Name of the Father, and of The Son, and of the Holy Spirit,” we have been made brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ, adopted children of the Heavenly Father, and gifted with the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit. There is only one HOLY SPIRIT. All the rest (fallen angels, demons, lost souls) are distractions and impediments to the healing, hope, glory, redemption, and sanctification God has in store for us through Jesus Christ and the Sacramental Life of the Catholic Church. Indeed, it is a delight to celebrate in faith the gift and grace of redemption we receive from Jesus, along with the Angels and Saints in our “Catholic Hall of Fame.”
Tuesday, November 2nd is the Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed, All Souls Day. On Tuesday, we will celebrate our typical 6:30 and 8:00 a.m. Masses in the morning; and, our Annual Mass of Remembrance at 7:00 p.m. This Mass will begin with a litany of names: the people who were buried from St. Peter Church this past year. A special invitation was sent to their families, inviting them to join us for this evening of prayerful remembrance. All are welcome, as we commend to God’s gracious care our family members, friends and faithful departed parishioners.
"Eternal rest grant unto them O Lord. And let perpetual light shine upon them. May they rest in peace. Amen. May their soul, and all the souls of the faithful departed rest in peace. Amen."
Fr. John Seper