Homily for Feast of All Souls 2008

Some preachers have a gift of communication that can enthrall their listeners. In simple words they are able to convey important messages. I admire such people because for me it is hard enough to get a few words together for a Sunday homily! When I think of how some can set up programs that touch large numbers of people in extraordinary ways it makes my efforts seem insignificant. Todays Mass is a commemoration of all the faithful departed. This commemoration can help us think about how each of us can witness to our faith and touch the lives of others. Because if there is one thing that unites us human beings it is our bewilderment in the face of death. The message of the gospel, of the one who was crucified and is risen, is a message that can still speak to our secular world because of the hope with which we live.

Christians have always honoured their dead. The inscriptions on Christian burials in the Catecombs in Rome from the early days of the Church testify to that. Christians at that time did use burial customs that were already in use from their pagan past. The specifically Chistian form developed of praying for deceased family and friends. And, eventually, that they may be relieved from suffering in Purgatory. This idea was rejected by some in the Reformation when, I think, they threw the baby out with the bathwater. Some rejected the idea that our merits and indulgences could have any influence on the state of those deceased. The dead are in God's hands alone. However, in thinking that way they rejected the idea that we could pray of the dead at all in any meaningful way.

While there certainly were problems with the idea of indulgences at the time, the idea of praying for the dead is still a great Christian tradition. The medieval idea of purgatory as a place of real physical fire did not help much. As Pope Benedict has reminded us the fire of purgatory could only be the fire of Christ's love for us. It is that love alone which purifies us.

We pray for our dead as Jesus prayed for Lazarus, as he prayed over the widow of Nain's only son and as he prayed for the twelve year old girl who was presumed dead. The love of Christ reaches to each and everyone in the Body of Christ, living or dead. It is as that Communion of Saints that we pray for one another and seek the intercession of the saints. For us Catholics it would be less than human for us to leave the faithful departed our of our thoughts and prayers.

So it is not with any morbid sentiment that we remember and pray for the dead. We remember them with joy. We remember to be thankful for them for who they were and what they did just as we remember and give thanks for Jesus himself. We also do remember sometimes with feelings of guilt that we could have done more for them in life. But we remember and pray for them because there is a grace here for them and us.

As he Jesus delivers the Beatitudes at the beginnng of the Sermon on the Mount he does not lay down any law. He doesn't say you must be poor, or you must mourn. Rather, he is saying that to embrace such a way of life is to be in a good place. It is to be close to the kingdom of God. To let oneself be vulnerable to others and God, to live in a non-competitive way in the kind of situations he describes, is to be congratulated by God. Such a person is not far from the kingdom.

It is that very attitude which runs all through the spirituality of the Eucharist. Jesus made himself vulnerable to us and to the Father. The Father also made himself vulnerable to us by sending Jesus into our midst. The love that drives that gift of Jesus is at the heart of Eucharist.

Tomorrow we have our annual blessing of our Columbarium and Memorial Garden after the 7am Mass. It is not quite a catecombe, but a special place nevertheless, where we honour members of our faith community who have gone to their rest in the hope of rising again.

Fr Graham