+ Today we commemorate the feast of all the holy souls of those who have gone before us: those who have tried the best they could to attain their place in the heart of heaven near the throne of God; and also those who due to significant imperfections that still need to be worked out, to make them a worthy vessel for the fullness of God's grace and presence, occupy a place in a purgatorial state - where the burning furnace of God's charity and love can purify them, so that in due time they may take their reserved place with all the faithful. Since these can no longer pray for themselves, prayer for them and on their behalf counts very much; and so today we pray for all those we have known who might be still in this state, or any unknown souls who have no one to pray for them.
This is a day which also helps us to get ourselves truly "in focus" – we are all going someplace, and this is not just a random place, but a single place that has predetermined instruction on how to get there, and a promised experience of immense joy and vitality unknowable completely to us in this dimension of life. This is why Jesus tells us that he not only knows about the Way and the Truth of the Life to which we yearn to go: but he actually IS these things: the way, the truth and the life, in the flesh, in person. And so as we allow him to saturate and fill us with all that he is – especially sacramentally – then we become sure of who we are, where we are going, and how it is we need to conduct ourselves along the way.
Come, you who are blessed by my Father; inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world!
No comments:
Post a Comment