All Saints and All Souls – Praying for the Dead

As October ends and November begins, we start thinking about the change of seasons, the coming of Advent, and the end of the year just around the corner.  So, too, do we come together as a community to pray for All Saints and at All Souls.

There are six seasons in the liturgical year: Advent, Christmas, Lent, Triduum, Easter, and Ordinary Time. Since Pentecost, we have been in Ordinary Time, which means counted or numbered. Unlike the calendar year, in the Liturgical year, November is the last month and a new year begins with Advent at the beginning of December.

During Ordinary Time green vestments are worn to represent hope and the life of grace in our souls.  The Daily Missal by Dom Gaspar Lefebvre OSB published c.1934 is an abundant source of information about the history of the Catholic liturgy.  In the section “Season after Whitsuntide from a Liturgical Point of View” he writes

‘the colour green used to be assigned to Angels, who were painted with green halos or robes.  The ancients also very often painted the Virgin Mary or Saints in green robes and on funeral monuments a sprig of green was drawn as a symbol of the immortality of the soul and the resurrection.’

So many things that we might so easily take as incidental, such as the use of colour or the placement of certain days in the liturgical calendar, are rich in meaning and history.  Our faith is rooted in history and because ours is a living church it is a living history.  At every mass, we stand with Mary at the foot of the cross and kneel down with the women outside the empty cave.

In Ordinary Time, the second half of the year between Pentecost and Advent, we go deeper into the teachings of Christ. As we hear the gospels and epistles during the week, we also celebrate a succession of feasts to remember however since the first Pentecost the Holy Spirit has inspired men, women, and children to live fully according to the teachings and love of Christ and after their deaths have been named Saints.  November first is the solemnity of All Saints, a holy day of obligation, and on the Second is the Commemoration of all the Faithful Departed (All Souls).

The Solemnity of All Saints celebrates all those who are in Heaven, in the light of God’s face – both those recognised by the Church as saints and those known only to the Lord.  We ask for their intercession and we strive to follow their example, so that we too can fulfil our vocation to be saints.

(introductory text for All Saints the CTS New Daily Missal)

From the very earliest days of the Christian religion, great respect and honour have been shown to the memory of the dead.  During the first three centuries, martyrs’ relics were kept in the catacombs of Rome where a great number of inscriptions to their memory can be seen. The Pantheon in Rome was a temple dedicated to all the Roman gods. Pope Boniface IV cleared it of all idols and between 607 and 610AD translated twenty-eight cartloads of martyrs’ relics from the catacombs and buried them beneath the high altar.

The basilica of St Mary and the Martyrs was dedicated on 13 May 610 AD. To reflect the changing nature of the saints from martyrs to include those who followed Christ in poverty and practices of Christian virtues, the basilica was renamed St Mary and all the Saints. In 835AD Pope Gregory IV consolidated all the various dates different churches commemorated All Saints to 1 November. Later, Pope Gregory VII transferred to this date the dedication of St Mary and all the Saints, to demonstrate the triumph of Christ over the false pagan deities.

Among those millions of the just who were faithful disciples of Jesus on earth, are several of our own family, relations, friends, members of our parochial family, now enjoying the fruit of their piety, adoring the Lord, King of kings, and Crown of All Saints and obtaining for us the wished for abundance of His mercies (Nov 1 Feast of All Saints, p 1734).

Pope Francis’ Apostolic Exhortation Gaudete et Exsultate (On the Call to Holiness in Today’s World) encourages us to remember we have been created by God to become saints. Most of us are not called to die for our faith. Instead, the path to holiness is made up of many small steps throughout our lives.  A kind gesture, the gift of listening, or being patient with someone at the end of a long and difficult day… all these small acts are steps towards holiness.  With the grace of the Holy Spirit, we can become better and more loving people, joining together in prayer, in communion with Christ and all the Saints to make the world a better and more loving place, as God created it to be.

Pope Benedict XVI, writes that

“Christian hope…is not solely individual, it is also always hope for others.  Our lives are profoundly linked, one to the other, and the good and the bad that each of us does always affects others, too.  Hence, the prayer of a pilgrim soul in the world can help another soul that is being purified after death. This is why the Church invites us today to pray for our beloved deceased and to pause at their tombs in the cemeteries.” (2 Nov Commemoration of all the Faithful Departed Daily Missal CTS)

It is human nature to continue to love when the loved one is no longer with us. We were created to love and continue the faith of our ancestors in the living communion between us and our brothers and sisters who have passed away. It was St Odilo, fourth abbot of the Benedictine monastery of Cluny, who instituted a day for the commemoration of all the departed in 998AD and prescribed that it should be celebrated the day after All Saints Day. The custom was soon adopted by the whole Christian world and sometimes became a day of obligation.

The special days of All Saints and All Souls so near the end of our Liturgical year, give us a set time to come together at mass and, as members of the Mystical Body of Christ, pray for the dead. Exactly as the Christian communion of people during our earthly pilgrimage brings us closer to Christ, so our community with the saints joins us to Christ, from whom issues all grace and the life of the People of God itself.

When we celebrate the Eucharistic sacrifice we are most closely united to the worship of the heavenly Church and confirm the living church as the body of Christ. The union of the wayfarers with the brethren who sleep in the peace of Christ is in no way interrupted by death, on the contrary, this union is reinforced by prayer. (cf Lumen Gentium 50) Today we have the same reason to pray for those who have died as Judas did after the battle against Gorgias (Maccabees, 12:43-45) when he arranged a sacrifice for the battle dead:

“In doing this he acted in a very excellent and noble way, inasmuch as he had the resurrection in mind; for if he were not expecting the fallen to rise again, it would have been superfluous and foolish to pray for the dead. But if he did this with a view to the splendid reward that awaits those who had gone to rest in godliness, it was a holy and pious thought.”

The desire for God is written in the human heart because we are created by God and for God; and God never ceases to draw us to himself. Each one of us is called to communion with God. Every prayer and act of love offered by us to or for those who are in heaven continues to Christ and through him to God. We are each part of the Mystical Body of Christ while pilgrims during our lifetimes on earth and we continue to be part of the Mystical Body after death without interruption, whether in a stage of purification or enjoying the beatific vision in Heaven.

When we are ready, we will see God face to face.

The will is strong and steadfast which is grounded on the great truths of our religion.  The soul which is strengthened by a sure and sound faith in the realities of the life to come holds firm against all the fears inspired by the devil and against the menaces of this world.  Persecution shuts down all homes on earth, but heaven will be wide open.  Antichrist may utter threats, but Christ himself will watch over us.  Death is inflicted, but immortality follows. What dignity, what security to leave this life with joy, triumphant over trials and tortures, one moment to close those eyes with which we used to gaze on men and on the world, the next to open them to see God and Christ!  Speedy indeed will be this joyful transition.  Suddenly you will be snatched from earth to find rest in the kingdom of heaven.

There is a crown for those who in times of persecution fight the good fight; there is a crown too for those who in times of peace keep true to their conscience.”   excerpt from the treatise of 3^rd Century martyr St Cyprian To Fortunatus