Today’s Feast of All Souls reminds us that every soul really matters. It is a reminder that we have another home, another dwelling place – a heavenly home. It reminds us that we are also a home to one another.
The beautiful words of the Gospel tell us how precious we are in the eyes of God: “This is the will of the one who sent me,” Jesus says. “That I should not lose anything of what he gave me.”God cherishes and seeks out every soul (John 6:37-40).
Christ wants to bring all of us home. HOME! This is the time of year our thoughts turn more and more to the place we call home. Holidays are coming up. There are gatherings around the family table. Home is our destination – again and again. We are drawn into the bright lights that offer us comfort and warmth.
HOME is not just bricks and mortar. It is people. It is the arms that hold you. The shoulders you lean on. It is the people who share your joys and your tears. The ones who pray with you and for you, even after you are gone. This pandemic has shown us how much we miss those arms and those shoulders to lean on.
Yesterday we celebrated a Communion of Saints. Today we honor a Communion of Souls. Many departed souls are closer than we realize. Just think about that. They are in the stories we tell and the jokes we share. They are in the recipes we’ve saved, the wisdom we’ve remembered, the shortcuts we take, and the ornaments we wrap in tissue and save to hang on the Christmas tree again this year.
The people we pray for today are in a thousand small details that together make up the world we know. They are more than a memory. They are LIFE! They are my mother, my father and my brother who have died. They are other family members. They are friends and neighbors. They are people we worked with and met along the way.
These are among the souls we remember today and pray for this day – our Communion of Souls. They are worth remembering and cherishing and celebrating. Election Day will not matter to any of us in the world yet to come.
The Church refers to them as “the departed”, as if they were on a plane that had left the terminal. Maybe that says it best. They have finished their earthly journey and have reached another destination.
We hope they have made it safely. Maybe they are not safely home as yet in the arms of the Lord. So they still need our prayers.
And we pray that one day we will join them, in that place of warmth and light, the place we call our only and eternal home.
Do offer your prayers today for departed family members, departed friends and especially departed souls you once struggled to get along with.
GOD DOESN’T EXPECT US TO SOLVE ALL THE WORLD’S PROBLEMS. GOD EXPECTS US NOT TO CREATE THEM!
