THE SOLEMNITY OF ALL SOULS

    NOVEMBER     -      IT IS THE MONTH OF ALL SOULS

WHERE MIGHT WE UNEXPECTEDLY AND SPIRITUALLY  ENCOUNTER  THEM IN OUR LIVES OF BUSY-NESS?

Have you ever noticed how you can be going about your business, caring for loved ones, getting chores done, earning a salary, when suddenly and without warning, you glimpse someone in the street, or you catch an odor of a certain food or you hear a few notes of a long forgotten song ...and you are catapulted back to that place, into a time that is long buried in memory and with people whose names you have to dig to bring to mind? The world just seems to pause for a moment and all is still while you peer into a time from your far away past.

These are the times when Spirit Lord is calling us to prayer for a soul. 

We see again a generous gesture from a comparative stranger and we are humbled at such spontaneous kindness. We get an impression of the touch of a loved one who has since gone Home to God and our eyes fill with tears for a million reasons. Or, we become a silent onlooker at that moment in our time past when we should have been in great danger but we walked away, unharmed ...and awe fills us... 

Did we recognize our magnificent Guardian Angel encamped around us with great power in all our vulnerability ?

Our Catholic faith teaches us that our Loving God is speaking and acting in our lives every moment of every day. He gently touches us through our humanity, our senses of smell, touch, sight, hearing. He touches us through our emotions too and through our memory and our intellect. In every way and in every circumstance, Spirit Lord, God, is endlessly and humbly and gently approaching us, asking us for a moment of our time, asking us for a hearing. Life becomes a holy encounter with God and "prayer" becomes a conversation with One who is enthralled that we dropped in to say, "Hello!"

And when we do that, He floods us with graces that allow us to see Him at work, to participate in Christ Jesus' Sacred Mission, revealing His Presence in the most unexpected times and places and people. 

This is that mystical place where Jesus Lord is drawing us, into His Act of Redemption, inspiring us to plead in prayer for souls held  in His Sacred Body, the Church Suffering, in Purgatory. 

 "... and the Kingdom of God enters our time."

"... None of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself."

"If one member suffers, all of us suffer together; if one member is honored , all rejoice together. Now you are the Body of Christ and individually members of it ..."

"In this solidarity with all men, living or dead, which is founded on the communion of saints, the least of our acts done in charity redounds to the profit of all." (CCC Articles 1168, 489,490)

When we seek the One who desires us more than we can possibly imagine, He will "fill our memory with His Presence" (St Louis de Montfort ). Suddenly, we are given the grace to recognize Him at work in that place and time from our long ago past. We see His eyes looking at us from that face who unexpectedly steered us away from danger years ago. We see Him in the face of that person who reached for our touch when we gave him that "handout". We hear his voice in the one who grasped our arm in fear and asked us to pray for him because he was dying. And we see His joy in the eyes of a loved one when we get an answer to prayer and that dear one is healed from an illness. We feel His Presence when an inexplicable peace descends all around the one who is very close to death and, as we prayed aloud for that dying soul, we see him smiling as he leaves us to go into the Arms of the waiting Savior.  We realize in awe that at that crucial moment, it was our God of deep humility Who had drawn us into His mighty act of Mercy when, as we prayed aloud through that moment of death, it was our own voice that God chose to walk that precious soul into eternity.

Our Savior beside us in our "now".

Our God making Himself recognizable is there, in our "past."

Our Lord waiting to draw us into our eternal Home with Him in a time that is "yet to come".

What was, what is, what is yet to be. All time meets in Him, Divine Time and God's human time, we in Him, He in us, He is All, in all.

When we beseech God's Mercy for all souls in Purgatory who are the Church Suffering, the spiritual power of our prayer is grasped in all its glory and when we offer it for them into the Wounds of the Savior it becomes part of the Mystery of the Communion of Spiritual Gifts, through, with and in Christ Jesus.

The souls in purgatory can do nothing for themselves. They can no longer merit or give satisfaction or receive the sacraments or gain indulgences. Charity to the suffering souls involves the mystery of the Communion of Saints.

The communion of saints is that spiritual unity and within it the treasury of spiritual gifts binds together the faithful on earth, (the Church Militant), the souls in Purgatory, (the Church Suffering) and the saints  (the Church Triumphant) in the mystical Body under Christ its Head. 

The Church Militant participates in the same sacraments, the same faith and a mutual exchange of merits and prayers which may be shared with souls in Purgatory (the Church Suffering).

 

"Every pious and holy action done by one belongs and is profitable to all through charity which seeks not her own."

Our memory returns to the guidance from St. Padre Pio. It's with a smile that we step into that moment when he excused himself from company, explaining that he had to go to pray for the soul of his great grandfather. His companion reminded him gently that his great grandfather had died many years ago. Perhaps our Saint's reply may propel us too to prayer:

"Yes, (he said,) but my prayers have already been accounted for."

He is echoing the depths and power of the insight of St. Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face who reveals that a prayer offered in love soars beyond space and time.

     HEROIC ACT OF CHARITY FOR THE SOULS IN PURGATORY (POPE LEO THE GREAT)

O MY GOD! for Thy greater glory, and to imitate as closely as possible the generous Heart of Jesus, my Redeemer, and also to testify my devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, my Mother, who is also the Mother of the Souls in Purgatory, I place in Her hands all my satisfactory works, as well as the fruit of all those which may be offered for my intention after my death, that She may apply them to the Souls in Purgatory according to Her wisdom and good pleasure. Amen.

What was, what is, what is yet to be, become One in Christ Jesus, God, through Spirit Lord, giving Glory to the Father.