The month of the Holy Souls unlike the modern funeral helps find meaning in life after death
Posted on November 7th 2010 in Weekly messages
The month of November is traditionally the month to pray for the Holy Souls. This seems the most appropriate time of year as autumn gradually gives way to winter, the days become shorter, the trees have shed their leaves, and the weather colder. The Commemoration of the Holy Souls always attracts a large number of people, and it is a moment to speak of issues that maybe cannot be said at a funeral itself. People have come to pray for the deceased members of their families, not in the abstract, but for a father, mother, sibling or, much more tragically, a child. They implicitly know that the deceased needs their prayers, and that a conversation through Jesus Christ is an act of devotion and love. Their prayers also contain both an implicit belief in the Resurrection, and a subtle understanding of the nature of human failing.
None of this seems possible at a funeral today, even for those with some acquaintance with the Church. The requests by non-religious members of the family for favourite pop songs, the need for sentimental eulogies given by those who should not be put under such strain, militate against the traditional purpose of a funeral, to commend the soul of the deceased to the mercy of God. Instead, funerals have become a celebration of the deceased’s life with the word death subtly moved to one side, and the tacit acceptance that the deceased has already entered heaven. Maybe with the decline of religious practice amongst families this has become an inevitable process.
However, the month of the Holy Souls maybe used to redress the balance, and bring a more God-centred understanding of death to the fore. Every person mourns in their own way the death of someone they have loved, but the growing length of time from death brings with it a more profound understanding of that person, both the good and the bad. Their limitations are taken out of context, which would be mostly unknown anyhow, and contained within a deeper love, so their limitations and sinfulness never become the last word as to their identity. The shallow statements of the funeral eulogy are replaced by something much more profound and much more real.
This realism born of time and prayer is open to the mercy of God as a gift not as a right, and therefore appreciated more deeply. Jesus told His disciples that all people are alive to God. This resurrected life offered universally by Jesus, both in the life to come, and partially in this life too, implies that all people are in need of this gift. Hence our prayers for the deceased members of our families show that we have not forgotten them; our love for them has become more profound and, most importantly, urge us to grasp the life offered by Jesus here and now: out of death comes life.