Each name and date on a cemetery headstone tells the story of a person’s life — some sadly brief, others full of years. When we walk in a cemetery, we’re reminded of the importance of life and the significance of death.
The seasons every year are a reflection of a greater reality. Most of us love autumn, but as the leaves fall from trees and the days grow shorter and colder, our spirit subtly changes. Autumn reminds us that life comes to an end.
Next week, we celebrate feasts of All Saints Day (Thursday) All Souls Day (Friday). The Church has encouraged prayer for the dead from the earliest times as an act of Christian charity. "If we had no care for the dead," Augustine noted, "we would not be in the habit of praying for them." Yet pre-Christian rites for the deceased kept such a strong hold on the superstitious imagination that a liturgical commemoration was not observed until the early Middle Ages, when monastic communities began to mark an annual day of prayer for the departed members.
In the middle of the 11th century, St. Odilo, abbot of Cluny (France), decreed that all Cluniac monasteries offer special prayers and sing the Office for the Dead on November 2, the day after the feast of All Saints. The custom spread from Cluny and was finally adopted throughout the Roman Church.
The theological underpinning of the feast of All Souls is the acknowledgment of human frailty. Since few people achieve perfection in this life but, rather, go to the grave still scarred with traces of sinfulness, some period of purification seems necessary before a soul comes face-to-face with God. The Council of Trent affirmed this purgatory state and insisted that the prayers of the living can speed the process of purification.
Praying for the dead has been a Catholic tradition from the earliest days of the Church. At every Mass, we pray for the dead. We should also pray for our beloved dead in our personal devotions. When we die, we hope the family and friends we leave behind will pray for us with great intensity so we might be worthy of the purifying love of God.
Death will always be a sobering prospect for human beings to face, but we Christians do it with confidence, knowing that there is new life beyond death. Our faith in Christ Jesus and his resurrection makes it possible for us to face this reality. We know we are going to die, but we also see death as the beginning of new life. St. Paul wrote “What you sow is not brought to life unless it dies. And what you sow is not the body that is to be but a bare kernel of wheat, but God gives it a body as he chooses and to each of the seeds its own body.” 1 Cor. 15:36-38 As seeds must decay in order to germinate and bring forth life, so death is merely a prelude to the resurrection and new life.
Eternal rest grant unto all of our faithful departed, may they all sleep in the peace of Christ.