Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed (All Souls’ Day) / Msgr. Owen F. Campion
The Sunday Readings
Nearly 1,000 years ago, the great Benedictine abbey of Cluny in France, situated roughly two-thirds of the way from Paris to Geneva, initiated a feast of commemorating all the departed souls. At the time, Cluny was a major center of learning, piety, and caring for the needy and missionary outreach, wielding much influence on the Church across Europe.
Eventually, Cluny’s feast of All Souls became an important date on the universal Catholic liturgical calendar.
This weekend, instead of celebrating the Thirty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time, the Church observes the Feast of All Souls, because the Church has a lesson to teach.
The first reading is from the Book of Wisdom. The purpose of this book is expressed in its name. It sees religious faith and devotion as the highest of human reasoning. Belief in and obedience to God are wholly logical.
The reading is reassuring. It states that God will never forsake the righteous. He will purify them as fire purifies gold. (Fire removes flaws from gold.)
For the next reading, the Church presents a passage from St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans. For two millennia, Christians have regarded Romans to be one of the genuine masterpieces of revelation.
Paul consoles us in sharing that, while we have sinned, God still loves us. Indeed, the Son of God died for sinners that they might have eternal life.
St. John’s Gospel supplies the last reading. In this reading, Jesus declares that no one who earnestly seeks God will be scorned. Each person is priceless. In God’s love, the plan is that no one shall be lost.
Reflection
Whenever the Church replaces the liturgy of a Sunday in the normal sequence of Ordinary Time with a feast, it intends to teach an important lesson.
The Church’s message this weekend is simple. Only the just may enter heaven, as the Scriptures teach. (See 2 Mac 12:38ff.; Mt 12:32; 1 Cor 3:12-15; 1 Pt 3:19.)
Everyone has sinned. While forgiven, believers suffer the ill effects of their sins, while not bringing upon eternal death.
The ancient Christian belief and consolation is that committing sin does not necessarily condemn anyone to everlasting doom. The Lord forgave
sins and bestowed this same authority
on the Apostles and their successors.
(See Jn 20:23.)
Purgatory is the Church’s theological explanation of how sinners overcome sin’s ill effects. Ultimately, it is about us as humans, and about God’s great love for us, even if we have sinned.
All Souls Day, first and foremost, calls Christians to be frank and honest with themselves. They are sinners. None is perfect. Accepting this fact is fundamental to Christianity, to any person’s choice to follow Christ.
Secondly, it proclaims the love and mercy of God, perfectly expressed in the ministry and the sacrificial death of the Lord. God lovingly forgives.
The Church earnestly insists that God loves us. At the same time, just as the ancient prophets and Christian mystics through the centuries have proclaimed, sin undoubtedly injures humans.
Even if we beg to be forgiven and have been forgiven, we continue to bear the effects of the injuries of sin. As sinners, we are wounded. Our selfishness has been increased. Our vision further blurred. We are confused and uncertain. We sin again.
Purgatory is the opportunity to be purified, for the wounds made by sin to be healed. It is a state of longing.
All people are united in their being children of God. Anyone can be received into union with God by his grace if they so choose. On All Souls Day, we pray that God mercifully will hurry the process of purification so that the souls in purgatory, our brothers and sisters in Christ, will soon fully live with God—healed, perfected and cleansed.
Sin wounds us, often badly, but God forgives and heals us. He loves us. Purgatory restores us. †