Holiness and eternal life

All Saints and All Souls day are celebrations dedicated to every saint and every soul who has died and returned home into the eternal and everlasting love of God. Their lives may not be acknowledged by name throughout the year in the Church’s feasts but are a silent witness and testimony to their belief in Christ and the promise of eternal life. Only God knows about these saints and the holy souls who both enjoy and await the gift of His presence and eternal love. It is our belief that God has inscribed their names in the Book of Life and that our celebration of these feasts remind us of the sure promise of hope which we are called to live as believers. 
 
Pope Francis noted that in the example of the saints “holiness is the most attractive face of the Church” and that “we should not grow discouraged before examples of holiness that appear unattainable.” The important thing is that each believer discern his or her own path, and that they bring the very best of themselves, the most personal gifts that God has placed in their hearts … for God’s life is communicated ‘to some in one way and to other in another way.’” (Gaudete et Exsultate 9, 11). The celebration of All Saints day is an annual reminder of this call to holiness that each of us have received in Baptism and which we acknowledge is the collective face of the Church both here on earth and in heaven.

When we gather at the funeral celebration of a loved one we hear the final Prayer of Commendation which is both instructive and consoling to all who are present, “Before we go our separate ways, let us take leave of our sister/brother.  May our farewell express our affection for her/him; may it ease our sadness and strengthen our hope.  One day we shall joyfully greet her/him again when the love of Christ, which conquers all things, destroys even death itself.” (Order of Christian Funerals, 2016, p. 245.)

On November 2, the Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed, (or more commonly known as the Feast of All Souls), we do not go our separate ways but rather come together to celebrate and remember in prayer those who have died. This universal day of prayer within the life of the Church allows those who mourn the death of a loved to be comforted (ref. Matthew 5:4) and to be strengthened in faith and hope in the promise of everlasting life that comes to us through Christ. Our human death may be a certainty but through, with, and in Christ, it receives new meaning.

The experience of dying embraces family members, friends, and eventually each one of us. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) states, “Death is the end of earthly life. Our lives are measured by time, in the course of which we change, grow old and, as with all living beings on earth, death seems like the normal end of life. That aspect of death lends urgency to our lives: remembering our mortality helps us realize that we have only a limited time in which to bring our lives to fulfillment.” (CCC, 1007)

​As Christians, our future mortality should convict us to live in the anticipation of being eternally with God. This faith and trust in God has the power to transform our understanding of death and places it within the context of the redemptive, salvific mercy of God as revealed in Jesus Christ who is as Pope Francis states, “the face of the Father’s mercy.”  (Misericordiae Vultus, Bull of Indiction of The Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy, 2015.)  The Catechism expresses this truth in the following way:

Because of Christ, Christian death has a positive meaning: "For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain."  The saying is sure: if we have died with him, we will also live with him.  What is essentially new about Christian death is this: through Baptism, the Christian has already "died with Christ" sacramentally, in order to live a new life; and if we die in Christ's grace, physical death completes this "dying with Christ" and so completes our incorporation into him in his redeeming act. ~ CCC, 1010​

The celebration of the feasts of All Saints and All Souls is the celebration of our unity and our communion with Christ, with one another in the call to holiness, and with His work of redemption. These feasts remind us of the Sacrament of our baptism, of the mission and promise of Christ, of holiness and eternal life, which should shape our lives as it did in those of the saints and holy souls who unite us in these days of prayer and celebration.  

Written by Most Rev. William T. McGrattan, Bishop of Calgary
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Oct. 29, 2021

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