It is that time of the year, the entire month of November, when we are all encouraged to pray, in a special way, for all the faithful departed; including members of our families, friends, other acquaintances but most especially, for those who have died and have no one to pray for them, some of whom no one even knows that they are no more living.
The month of November begins with us praising God for all the Saints, our brothers and sisters who lived like us in this world and live the life of the Blessed hereafter, in Heaven. The following day, we commemorate all “faithful” departed souls; those we know that tried their best no matter how little it might seem, to live good lives, be good people and please God in their own way. We pray that God looks upon them and judge them with mercy and forgive their sins, if there is any that clung to them at the time of their death and compensate for their punishment or at least let us who are living help them obtain their purification – that is why we pray for them all through the year but more so during the eleventh month of the year and in a special way, on the second day of that month.
As we pray for all the faithful departed during the month of November, it helps us also to reflect on the mystery of death, and as Saint Ambrose would say, “We should have a daily familiarity with death, a daily desire for death. By this kind of detachment our soul must learn to free itself from the desires of the body…It must take on the likeness of death, to avoid the punishment of death.…Christ did not need to die if he did not want to, but he did not look on death as something to be despised, something to be avoided, and he could have found no better means to save us than by dying. Thus his death is life for all. We are sealed with the sign of his death…His death is victory; his death is a sacred sign; each year his death is celebrated with solemnity by the whole world.…Death is then no cause for mourning, for it is the cause of mankind’s salvation. Death is not something to be avoided, for the Son of God did not think it beneath his dignity, nor did he seek to escape it.…Death was not part of nature; it became part of nature. God did not decree death from the beginning; he prescribed it as a remedy. Human life was condemned because of sin to unremitting labor and unbearable sorrow and so began to experience the burden of wretchedness. There had to be a limit to its evils; death had to restore what life had forfeited.”
Our beloved dead have been freed from the unremitting labor and unbearable sorrow due to sin in this life. Their souls have turned away from the aimless path introduced by the defilement of an earthly body to gain that glory won by the death of Jesus Christ on Calvary. Ignominious though His death was, but it is because He took to Himself our own shame.
As we remember our beloved dead, let us have it in mind that they depend too on our prayers to enter into the Glories of Heaven as to then pray for us who remain here on earth. So we pray: Eternal rest grant unto them O Lord, and let your perpetual light shine upon them. May they rest in peace, Amen. May the souls of all the faithful departed through the mercy of God rest in peace, Amen.
Fr. Stan
