Greetings on this the The Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed
(All Souls)
Readings: Wis 3:1-9; PS 23:1-3a, 3b-4, 5, 6; Rom 6:3-9; Jn 6:37-40
Notes: In a strange way we can say that today’s Mass for All Souls is of the highest importance.
I could go to say even more important than the Solemnity of the All Saints (because I want to ‘wake you’).
Book: Charity for the Suffering of Souls, Rev. John A. Nageleisen, TAN, 1982, original 1895.
We have the holy obligation to come to the aid of those in crisis, in this life and in the life to come.
Purgation, by all accounts, is a difficult and often lengthy process.
Care for those dead who are in Purgatory is an act of spiritual mercy.
Reflection
Whether or not one should pray for the dead is one of the great arguments which divide Christians. Appalled by the abuse of indulgences in the Church of his day, Martin Luther rejected the concept of purgatory. Yet prayer for a loved one is, for the believer, a way of erasing any distance, even death. In prayer we stand in God’s presence in the company of someone we love, even if that person has gone before us into death.
https://www.franciscanmedia.org/saint-of-the-day/commemoration-of-all-the-faithful-departed
First reading
The souls of the just are in the hand of God,
and no torment shall touch them.
We trust in this promise.
Responsorial Psalm
The Lord is my shepherd; there is nothing I shall want.
We wish to become totally in union with the Shepherd, wanting nothing else.
Second reading
Brothers and sisters:
Are you unaware that we who were baptized into Christ Jesus
were baptized into his death?
We enter into the death gladly as it brings death to death itself.
Alleluia Verse
Come, you who are blessed by my Father;
inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.
We are meant to be with God forever.
Gospel Portion
For this is the will of my Father,
that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him
may have eternal life,
and I shall raise him on the last day.
The dead are aided by alms, by the prayers of the Church, and by the Sacrifice of the Mass – St Augustine.
Sprinkle them with the water of purification (Num 8:7a).
Thoroughly wash away my guilt; and from my sin cleanse me (Ps 51:4).
Cleanse me with hyssop, that I may be pure; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow (Ps 51: 9).
Peace be with you,
Deacon Gerry
Deacon Gerry Palermo 