Breaking Open the Word
November 2, All Soul's Day
Introduction
Today we celebrate the Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed (All Souls). All Souls Day is always celebrated on November 2 which falls Sunday this year. Halloween might be a spooky time of year for most, but for Christians it is a time of great joy and rejoicing! During this season, we are called to remember all souls that Christ gives life to and celebrate the saints in heaven who are celebrating with Jesus.
In addition, we are called to grow in holiness and proclaim Christ’s victory over death and evil by the cross. This is a powerful time and contrary to popular belief, we have nothing to fear, because Christ defeated anything we might be afraid of on the cross!
Note that the readings used for SES All Soul's Mass are:
Wisdom 3:1-9
Romans 8:14-23
Luke 7:11-17
Gospel Explained
This story of the widow of Nain is only found in Luke’s Gospel. It is one of only three stories in the Gospel where Jesus is described as bringing a dead person to life. Jesus raises:
† The daughter of Jairus, the president of the Synagogue at Capernaum,
† The widow of Nain's son.
† Lazarus, the brother of Martha and Mary of Bethany.
Today’s story is particularly sad. A woman, who has already lost her husband, has now lost her only son—her only means of support. She is on the way to bury him.
The lot of the widow in those days was particularly difficult in a society where the married woman was no longer the responsibility of her own family, and who, after the death of husband and children, was no longer the responsibility of her husband’s family either. She was largely left to her own devices in a society where social welfare of any kind was unknown.
Jesus Himself is deeply moved at her plight. At this point, for the first time, Luke refers to Jesus as “Lord”, a title reserved for God Himself. When Jesus raises the young man from death, the crowd is filled with awe and admiration. We experience Jesus’s compassion and His power to bring life from death, which offers us comfort and perspective as we honor the memory of our beloved deceased today.
Each of Jesus's resurrection miracles prefigures the promise of our bodily resurrection from death when Jesus returns in the Second Coming. As St. Paul wrote, "We believe that Jesus died and rose again, and that in the same way God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus…At the signal given by the voice of the Archangel and the trumpet of God, the Lord Himself will come down from heaven; those who have died in Christ will be the first to rise, and only after that shall we who remain alive be taken up in the clouds, together with them to meet the Lord in the air. This is the way we shall be with the Lord forever.” (I Thes 4:14-18)
Today's Theme
The Kingdom of Jesus Christ is divided into three parts: The Church Glorious, the Church Militant, and the Church Suffering (CCC 954). The Church Glorious is composed of those souls who live in the presence of God in the heavenly Sanctuary. The Church Militant, also called the "Pilgrim Church," contains those of us who continue the struggle against the powers of Satan (Revelation 12:17) as we journey through this world on our way to our true home in the Promised Land of Heaven. The Church Suffering has those souls judged worthy of salvation, but who must endure purification before entering the Beatific Vision.
On November 2nd, we are asked to remember all the faithful departed souls, including the souls of the Church suffering in Purgatory. We do not know which souls at their Individual/Particular Judgement died in a state of grace and found to have pure souls worthy of Heaven. Nor do we know which souls were judged worthy of salvation but required purification in Purgatory, cleansed of the stain of venial sins that went unconfessed, or forgiven mortal sins in the Sacrament of Reconciliation but for which accountability is still necessary. Finally, we do not know the identity of those souls who have rejected the gift of eternal life and have consigned themselves to eternal separation from God. Since we are not qualified to judge the condition of souls and cannot know the destinations of the departed, we should persevere in prayer for all the dead.
However, remembering the dead should not be a gloomy experience. Who else can afford to laugh at death but the Christian whose Savior defeated the power of sin and death as we read in Romans 6:9-13; 8:38; 1 Corinthians 15:54; Hebrews 2:14-15? As Christians, we have faith that death is not the end.
Theme in our Life Today
When we believe in Christ, we are not afraid of suffering and death, in fact we embrace it because God suffers with us, and He is not dead! When we bring to the Altar our weekly sins, when we place upon the paten (which holds the eucharistic bread) our fears and sadness, the priest lifts it up and angels carry them to the Altar of God. We do this because God is the God of both the living and the dead. He reaches out to us through Jesus and touches the very part of us that we try to ignore, the ugly side, the weak side, the side that is afraid to fail.
Jesus is here now, reminding us never to be afraid of failing, never be afraid of suffering or of death. Be afraid of not standing up again, of not being reconciled with God or of not being prepared to take the next step in living.
Prepare for Sunday
1. Pray the Chaplet of Divine Mercy. For more information on that prayer, check out https://lifeteen.com/calling-on-mercy/
2. Go to Mass and offer it up for all the faithful departed.
3. Go to Adoration and pray for all those who have passed away.
4. Go to a cemetery to pray for the souls that have been buried there and remember your own mortality and choose to live with faith and fortitude, making every day count on your journey toward Heaven!