The Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed; First Saturday of the Month Let us cry to God: you are our refuge, O Lord! Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be for ever. Amen. Alleluia! Wisdom 3:1-9 ; Psalm 23 ; Roman 5:5-11 ; or Roman 6:3-9 ; John 6:37-40 The commemoration of All Souls is rooted in the Churchs strong conviction that we, the living, have a serious responsibility in love to accompany with prayer those who have died but who must yet complete the purificatory preparation every human being needs to be able to dwell in the all-encompassing love of God. I would go so far as to say that if there was no purgatory, then we would have to invent it, who would dare say of himself that he was able to stand directly before God. And yet we dont want to be, to use an image from the Scripture, a pot that turned out wrong, that has to be thrown away; we want to be able to be put right. Purgatory basically means that God can put the pieces back together again. That he can cleanse us in such a way that we are able to be with him and can stand there in the fullness of life. Purgatory strips off from one person what is unbearable and from another the inability to bear certain things, so that in each of them a pure heart is revealed, and we can see that we all belong together in one enormous symphony of being.- Pope Benedict XVI All humanity is bound together by the common mortality in which Christ Jesus came to share. With us he died, so that in him we might rise to everlasting life. Let us learn from those who have gone before us how to live well so that we may die well, and let us accompany them on their journey with our love and prayer. Prayer Our Father..... O God, in the death of your only Son, you gave life to the world. Raise up in joy all those who have died in peace or in terror, in confidence or in despair, through the mercy you have shown us in Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God for ever and ever. Amen. God Bless Us All!
Posted on: Sat, 02 Nov 2013 07:15:13 +0000