All Souls Day, November 2, is one of my favorite days in the Church’s year. This special feast gives me an opportunity to communicate with all the people I have known and loved who have died.
As Christians, we do not believe in false or superficial forms of communication with the dead (séances or voodoo or other forms of superstition). We communicate with those who have died through our prayer.
Many years ago, when he was a professor of theology, Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI) wrote a series of scholarly reflections on death and eternal life. In one of these he writes: “The possibility of helping and giving does not cease to exist on the death of the Christian. Rather does it stretch out to encompass the entire communion of saints, on both sides of death’s portals.”
If we take this seriously, it means that we have a stewardship responsibility to pray for those who have died. Prayer is always directed to God, but we Christians believe that Mary and all the saints can assist us in our communication with our Heavenly Father. They intercede for us, whether we ask them to or not, but they also pray with us. That means they accompany us on our individual spiritual journeys, and if we let them, they can and do communicate with us along the way.
Praying with the people we love who have died doesn’t require a lot of words. In fact, prayer is more about listening than about talking. When we pray, we place ourselves in God’s hands. We open our hearts to him. We listen for his word, and we seek to do his will. Praying with Mary and the saints (and all who have died) is no different. It’s about being open and receptive to what God has to say to us through them. And it means sharing our deepest hopes and fears, our joys and our sorrows, our frustrations in daily living, and our desire to be better persons and to grow in holiness as disciples of Jesus Christ.
When I talk to my mother who died many years ago, I tell her that I love her. I thank her for the gift of life and for all the things she did for me as I was growing up. I ask her to forgive me for taking her for granted sometimes. And I forgive her for her failings as a mother. Finally, I ask her to help me be a better man, to love and support my wife and family, and my sisters and brothers and their families, more consistently, and to be a wise and humble man. My conversations with my mother take place in the context of prayer. I pray with and for her and, more importantly, she prays with and for me.
The stewardship responsibility we have to pray for and with those who have died is one way of “giving back to the Lord with increase.” It acknowledges that we were blessed (gifted) with the love and support of our beloved dead. Now it’s our turn to return with increase these precious gifts.
May the souls of all the faithful departed through the mercy of God rest in peace. And may they pray for us always as we promise to pray for them until we are all united with Christ in our heavenly home on the Last Day.
-Daniel Conway
