All Souls Day

Readings in brief All Souls Day

Wis 3:1-9; Ps 22 (23); Rm 5:5-11; Mk 15:33-39,16:1-6

We die to live

Dear friends, today is the day when we remember and pray for the departed souls. The liturgical colours today are Violet and black. Violet is the symbol of penance, and black is the symbol of mourning. Death is the greatest sign of contraction because it seems on the one hand to destroy life and on the other hand a time to give new life. Jesus, talking about the necessity of his death, told his disciples. “Truly, truly I tell you, unless the grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single grain. But if it dies, it produces many seeds” (Jn 12:24). The only way to eternity is through the door of death.

Death is also the most certain event of human life and everyone knows about it. We may attempt to forget it, we may even deliberately ignore it, and we may revolt violently against it, but it is eventually inescapable. Even when the doctors tell us that there is no remedy for the terminally sick, we feel obliged to spend all we have in our attempt to prolong their lives. Eventually the sick die and we spend even more to bury them. When we attend funerals, most of the time we concentrate on mourning the dead rather than reflecting on our own inevitable death. Funerals can also be wonderful opportunities to mourn our own death because when we die, we will not be able to do so.

After saying all these seemingly unsettling facts about death, let me bring an element of faith that shines the light of hope in human life. From the book of Genesis, we read that God created human beings in his own image and likeness and therefore we are as immortal as God is. However, through the sin of disobedience and desire to be something more than what God made them to be, man and woman brought upon themselves the mortality of the body on earth.

Scientifically death occurs when the heart and the brain stop. Spiritually, death is the separation of the body and the soul with the body returning to dust and the soul returning to God. We believe that God created human beings immortal, not to live forever on the face of the earth but to return to him and live eternally. This leads us to contemplate the two types of death that are possibilities for human beings as opposed to the brute animals that only die once. Jesus also alluded to this fact when he told his disciples “But I will tell you whom to fear, Fear he who after he has killed the body, has authority to throw you to hell” (Lk 12:5). Hell is the second and the worst death.

The greatest tragedy in life is to lose that which one has been so much yearning for whether knowingly or unknowingly, to see God as he is and to live eternally. Death is considered brutal because it takes away many things that we cherish such as a loved voice, shared experiences, beautiful faces, resource persons, a great leader, and the list can go on and on. However, death is the end of the toils and sufferings of this world and the beginning of eternal life where all tears are wiped away (Rev 21:4).

Jesus came to save us not from the physical death and decay of our mortal bodies but from eternal death (hell) brought about by sins. He himself died and rose again in order to give us the everlasting possibility of our own resurrection. The only difficulty is that though salvation has been freely given to all, not everyone seems to accept or choose it. In my own opinion, death is not the most tragic thing on earth but the freedom to choose is.

From the book of Wisdom, we read today that the souls of the virtuous are in the hands of God. After the physical death, the souls of the just will return to live eternally with God, and the souls of the unjust will be subjected to eternal damnation. Our hope is not in vain and we must never give in to the temptation to think that all ends with the physical death as the unbelievers think.

Today we pray for the departed souls who may be still in purgatory (a place of cleansing for those who died with debts to pay). Our prayers will help to lessen their period of cleansing, Vox Populi, Vox Dei – The voice of the people is the voice of God. When on earth we have all the possibilities, we can change from good to bad or bad to good as we wish. However, the moment we die, we die with the immediate choice we had made before dying. Those who completely deny the existence of God and live in a manner contrary to the Divine Law will rise to eternal condemnation. Those who did not deny the existence of God and the salvation in Christ and die in sin will rise to purgatory to be cleansed before they can enter heaven. Our prayers cannot change the status of the former but can help the latter. This is our faith evidenced in the revelation (Macc 12:44).

Dear friends, faith and hope in God and his salvation given to us through Christ Jesus are supposed to impel us to live righteously even in the world where corruption is so glorified. The thought of the inevitability of the death of our loved ones and our own death must not dull our spirit but animate us in virtue and righteousness. As we pray for our faithful departed, let us also take a moment to think about our own death and amend what we deem necessary in our lives. We die to live and not live to die.

Have a blessed day.

Fr. Lawrence Muthee, SVD