Reflection on the Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed (All Souls’ Day)

When I was in the seminary taking homiletics, our professor told us that our listeners would likely not remember everything we said in a homily and so he advised that perhaps we should try to state what we wanted to say in a “headline” because people might remember a headline more easily.  So, my headline for you today is, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”  Full disclosure: I stole the headline.  While the origin of that saying likely comes from Shakespeare’s work, “Love Labours Lost,” the actual words come from an 1878 novel by Margaret Hungerford titled “Molly Brawn.”  Thank you, Google!!!

Many of us here in the church today have been participating in the annual LLINK meeting and have been considering the theme of “beauty.” Those joining us virtually both here at Loretto and in their own location, will be expecting the focus of my words to be on the readings from today’s liturgy in which we celebrate “el dia de los Muertos,” or All Souls Day.  Since the 13^th century, the Church has kept the day immediately following the day of remembering all of the officially recognized saints, All Saints’ Day, as a day to remember all of those who have died.

Most of us have attended a funeral service where it has been said that death is a “bittersweet” moment.  Said in many ways, and often eloquently, we heard that it is “bitter” in the sadness and grief of loss, but “sweet” in the memory and legacy and blessedness of the one who has gone before us.

All of our readings for today’s liturgy invite us to remember the “bitter” experience of death but cherish the “sweet” promise of abiding in God in love for eternity.

Looking at the mementos on the Altar of Remembrance I can’t help but think of the many lives that have touched each of us.  When my father died, my sisters and I found a box of memory cards, holy cards, that dad received at each funeral he attended. Each day, we remembered, Dad would take a few of those cards (five or 10, as I remember) and he would look at each one and say a prayer for the person, by name. He told us sometimes he would smile at a memory of the person or remember the way he knew them and offer thanks. Without calling it that, I think Dad thought of each day as an All Souls Day, a “Dia de los Muertos.”  In placing these mementos on this altar the loved ones who have touched our lives are remembered and honored.

St. Teresa of Avila once defined prayer as “conversation” with God.  The Scriptures are God’s word, speaking to our hearts.  Our words of song and response are the response we make to God. So the conversation goes. We then behold in our eyes the beauty of each of these persons and how they touched us and we say “thanks.” We behold the beauty of each soul who is now in the “hand of God.” There “no torment shall touch them,” and God, through the author of the book of Wisdom, responds to our thanks, reminding us that “they are in peace.”  

In our eyes we behold with grateful thanks, those who have touched our lives and the Scriptures invite us to also behold the beauty of the promise of what is to come for each and every one of us.  We behold the beauty of knowing that after we have made it through the “dark valley”  the Psalmist tells us that we will find restful waters, we will be invited to a table of plenty in the house of our God, and that because of God’s love we will be “saved through him” and that we “shall rise on the last day.”

One of Dorothy Day’s favorite quotes was, “The world will be saved by beauty.” Dorothy cited those words from Dostoevsky.  Because our eyes behold beauty in the lives who have gone before us and now in the lives of those around us, and the beauty in our own lives, and in the creation given to us by God, we hope and believe that we and our world will be saved.  St.  Paul reminds us, “And hope does not disappoint because the love of God has been poured into our hearts.”