All Saints’ Day

-


WHEN MEMORY TURNS TO FESTIVITY



Catholics will flock to churches, cemeteries and memorial parks November 1and 2 to celebrate monuments of faith. Both feasts point to life.  Both feasts are rooted in memory.  Both feasts are fuelled by love.

What can be more biblical than God’s love that transforms sinners into saints and purifies souls so they can inherit heaven.  It’s all very biblical!

Why do we remember?  Why do we hope in a life promised to us?  It is because we have experienced love.

God’s love is so powerful an invitation and so attractive a prospect that many people lived their lives as a preparation for a fuller, richer, more abundant life with God.  These are the saints, those who were faithful on earth and thus victorious in heaven.

These are the saints we know and venerate in the church but also the nameless saints who silently walked this earth filling other people’s lives with love.  They felt God’s love and responded in love, and now they bask in love. Remembering them inspires us to listen to love’s call and to be faithful to it.

In a special way we also continue to remember the ones who are closest to us - relatives and friends – and have gone before us; men and women with whom we shared our lives.

From the Bible to Tradition to personal testimonies, we are filled with the assurance that though they are dead in the eyes of men, in the God’s eyes they “live forever”.  While some of them are already in heaven, some are still being prepared and purified for it.

And love, the power that defies boundaries, hatred and indifference, enables us to break through the walls of death and to feel our unity with these loved ones. It is not the flowers nor the candles that connect us with the departed, but above all prayer and love, that sustains our link with them.

Honoring the departed makes us honor the God who is the one Master of life and who created us to live in perfect unity with each other. It also reminds us that love continues even beyond the grave.  As love is powerful on earth, so it is even more forceful after our earthly pilgrimage.  Let us continue to remember.  Let us continue to hope. Let us continue to love. 

Popular posts from this blog

HOLY MASS IN FILIPINO (TAGALOG)

-
Image
ANG BANAL NA MISA PAMBUNGAD NA AWIT Pari:    Sa ngalan ng Ama, at ng anak, at ng Espiritu Santo. Bayan: Amen P.         Sumainyo ang Panginoon. B.        At sumainyo rin. P.         Mga kapatid, aminin nating ang ating mga kasalanan upang tayo’y maging marapat sa pagdiriwang ng banal na paghahaing ito.             Sinugong Tagapagpagaling sa mga nagsisisi,             Panginoon, kaawaan mo kami. B.        Panginoon, kaawaan mo kami. P.        Dumating na Tagapag-anyayang mga makasalana’y magsisi,             Kristo, kaawaan mo kami. B.         Kristo, kaawaan mo kami. P.         Nakaluklok ka sa kanan ng Diyos Ama para ipamagitan kami             Panginoon, kaawaan mo kami. B.         Panginoon, kaawaan mo kami. P.         Kaawaan tayo ng makapangyarihang Diyos,             Patawarin tayo sa ating mga kasalanan,             At patnubayan tayo sa buhay na walang hanggan. B.        Amen. GLORIA/ LUWALHATI
Read more

SIMBANG GABI DAY 1: READINGS AND REFLECTIONS

-
Image
FIRST DAY: DECEMBER 16   (from the book: Where is the Child?by Fr. R. Marcos (Makati: StPauls);  pls responsibly acknowledge source when using publicly)   fr tam nguyen's photo First Reading: Isaiah 56:1-3, 6-8   Thus says the Lord: Observe what is right, do what is just, for my salvation is about to come, my justice, about to be revealed.   Hay is the one who does this, whoever holds fast to it: Keeping the sabbath without profaning it, keeping one’s hand from doing any evil. The foreigner joined to the Lord should not say, “The Lord will surely exclude me from his people”; Nor should the eunuch say, “See, I am a dry tree.” And foreigners who join themselves to the Lord, to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord, to become his servants—All who keep the sabbath without profaning it and hold fast to my covenant, them I will bring to my holy mountain and make them joyful in my house of prayer; their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will
Read more

SIMBANG GABI DAY 2: READINGS AND REFLECTIONS

-
Image
SECOND DAY: December 17   (from the book: Where is the Child?by Fr. R. Marcos (Makati: StPauls);  pls responsibly acknowledge source when using publicly)   fr tam nguyen's photo   First Reading: Genesis 49:2, 8-10   Jacob called his sons and said [to them]: “Assemble and listen, sons of Jacob, listen to Israel, your father. “You, Judah, shall your brothers praise—your hand on the neck of your enemies;the sons of your father shall bow down to you. Judah is a lion’s cub, you have grown up on prey, my son. He crouches, lies down like a lion, Like a lioness—who would dare rouse him? The scepter shall never depart from Judah, or the mace from between his feet, until tribute comes to him, and he receives the people’s obedience.”     A.             Short Background on the First Reading   1. Who was Judah? Judah was one of the twelve sons of Jacob (or Israel). Jacob was considered the father of the nation of Israel and his twelve sons were cons
Read more