The Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed (All Souls)

Lectionary: 668

Hope does not disappoint,

because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts

through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

Alone among all Earth's creatures we human beings remember a long past and anticipate a very long future. We closely guard ancient stories, rituals, traditions and monuments that tell us who we are, even as we teach our children to recognize themselves by these treasures of the past. The present moment, as critical as it is, is only the transition point to the future, where we can reasonably expect to recognize ourselves by what we know of the past. Only a fool lives for the present moment, dismissing the past and ignoring the future.

However, unlike other earthly creatures, we face the stark reality of death. While they instinctively avoid it, reason and hard experience tell us what beasts cannot foresee -- it is inevitable. There are no exceptions.

But not even a human being can imagine being dead; even a fully aware person cannot imagine unconsciousness. We cling to awareness and suppose it must last forever. 

Creatures of time past, present and future, no sooner do we wake from sleep than we ask, "What time is it?" We must relocate ourselves in time often. But consciousness without time? Without place? An endless nowhere? It's impossible.

And yet each human being knows "I shall die." It's a hard reality, an insult to awareness. I don't mind sleeping and I may willingly undergo unconsciousness for a necessary surgery, but rationality can find no reason to stop being myself. Even the suicide expects relief from pain, which is not nothing.

The Christian's hope in the face of death resides in that mysterious, confusing incident in Jerusalem many centuries ago. Not only did Jesus die and rise, he faced certain death as he advanced on Jerusalem, was arrested, tortured, tried and crucified. He could no more imagine being dead than you or I, but he trusted blindly his Father's fidelity in the face of death.

The accounts of his resurrection are oddly confusing. No one claimed to see him rise though several people saw him risen. But where did they first see him, in Jerusalem or Galilee? Who saw him first, the women by the grave, two disciples on the road, or the eleven hiding in the upper room? There is no coherent, plausible series of events. And why does the earliest account of his resurrection, Saint Mark's Gospel, say nothing of his appearance?

Our enemies can mock that uncertainty, but none of that matters because he has gathered us to himself and each one of us "feels" -- for lack of a better word -- related to, connected with and known by this Man. That assurance we sometimes call the Holy Spirit; we celebrate it with our Eucharist; we know it in our prayers. Even in our worse moments, when we feel unworthy of such knowledge, he holds and sustains us.

Today the Church commemorates the faithful departed, those who still belong to our communion though they are long dead. Just as we know the Lord remains with us, we are sure of our ongoing fellowship with the dead. They have not simply stepped over the cliff and disappeared. The Church loses no one to death.

This commemoration reminds us that we dare not live only for the present moment. Memento mori! Remember death! Though the past cannot be changed and the future lies beyond our grasp, this moment is our opportunity to embrace all the universe and all time in one prayer, "Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be. Amen!"