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04 Oct 2015 - Twenty-seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B

It has been my privilege to witness thousands of wedding ceremonies. I have experienced touching moments—the groom with tears of joy streaming down his face as he watched the bride processing up the aisle and the bride who sang her prayer as she placed a flower at Mary’s altar. I’ve also endured the comical—the groomsmen wearing Scottish kilts who constantly needed me to remind them to keep their legs together as they sat in the sanctuary and bridesmaids wearing dresses so tight they couldn’t kneel and had to be carried up the steps of the church. I’ve seen a lot. Fortunately, it is what is not visible that makes the ceremony a sacrament. In the sacrament of Matrimony the promise of fidelity the couple shares with each other becomes a sacred and graced covenant between them. And so, God in return makes a covenant promise to be faithful and present to them on their life journey together. This all mirrors the promise God made to Adam and Eve in the story of creation and continues to make with us, first in history and still now through Jesus, reminding us that ours is a faithful God who challenges us to fidelity.

Authors Father Dominic Grassi

Matrimony covenant sacrameht faithful

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Who's listening?

27 Feb 2011 - Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A

Many of the women in the assembly will be mothers, and many of those mothers will be tired, especially if their children are young! Sunday Mass may be one of the few moments of relatively quiet time in their week. They who nourish all week come to be nourished in turn. Today's psalm refrain of resting in God will fall on receptive ears, and Isaiah comparison between God's steadfastness and that of a mother for her infant will be welcome news. Mothers understand all about being faithful servants as they attentively serve the many needs of their young ones. And while children may, per the gospel's counsel, be free of concern about where their next meal is coming from or what they will wear tomorrow, it is only because their mothers and fathers have taken care of those details. Give a nod this Sunday in the direction of all mothers--and all other adults who tend to the needs of the youngest and most vulnerable among us. Let them know God will not forsake them in their travails nor forget the sacrifice they make to nurture new life to strength.

mothers faithful servants caretaker nurture

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Exploring the word

07 Feb 2010 - Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle C

I think we know how Peter feels. After a long and fruitless night he's tired and disappointed. He and his men have worked hard until dawn to catch fish, only to come home empty-handed. We've all invested time, energy, and resources into things that just didn't pan out: a special project at work perhaps, or something as dear and vital as a relationship. We've known failure, in one guise or another. A friend of mine reports that after 30 years of marriage and raising a family, her husband has found someone else and is gone. "It's a done deal," she says, sighing. And in that sigh deacades of building a home together goes up in smoke. When marriages collapse, when careers are pink-slipped into oblivion, when finances are shattered and homes lost, we find ourselves on the shore like Peter, picking seaweed out of our nets and feeling used or betrayed. What was the purpose of our striving? Was it all for nothing? How many of us are prepared, in the dawn of our great emptiness, to try again? Which of us would step back into our boats and head back out to open waters and lower those nets? That takes hope. You have to believe in love's potential, or "the cause," or whatever it is that made you willing to fish in the first place. You have to believe in the existence of the fish at the minimum! The vocation of a spouse to be faithful, or a parent to love and nurture, or a pastor to reap God's harvest, or a worker to build, create, or serve—all have the same goal, which is fruitfulness. We don't want to be wasted. We don't want to look back on our lives with a sigh, like my friend whose marriage seems to have evaporated. An anonymous American poet composed a poem of only two lines: "I wish that I had died for love/But I didn't." None of us wants that as an epitaph! We want to live for love, at least, so that we can leave this world in the certainty of our fruitfulness. If we sometimes find ourselves like Peter in the daybreak of disappointment holding empty nets, we have to be like Peter also in his willingness, at a word from Jesus, to go back out there and lower our nets again. This action separates disciples from pretenders. Disciples trust, even when their nets are empty, that there are fish out there to be caught. Disciples don't measure fruitfulness by individual successes or failures but by their faithfulness. Our trust remains not in what we can do but in what God can do. Related scripture links The recitation of Paul’s suffering for the faith: 2 Cor. 11:16-27 The healing of the centurion’s slave: Luke 7:1-10; Matt. 8:5-13 A Jew unclean under a Gentile’s roof: Acts 10:28 God’s grace is sufficient: 2 Cor. 12:9-10 Catechism links Called from unworthiness: CCC 208; 598; 2584

Authors Alice Camille

Peter fish faithful fruitfulness disappointment

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Prayers

02 Nov 2014 - Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed (All Souls’ Day), Cycle A

Penitential Act Invitation We pray to be with God now and at the hour of our death. Invocations We remember with love all who have come before us. Lord, have mercy. We hope to remain faithful in love and service all our lives. Christ, have mercy. We call on God be be merciful in our final hours. Lord, have mercy. Prayer of the Faithful The universal prayer As the days become shorter, we bring to mind those who have died and contemplate our own homecoming to God. Let us offer our prayers, with hope in God and in loving response to all who have ever prayed for us. For all the faithful departed. May those who have fallen asleep in the Lord find eternal life and be raised on the last day, especially those we now remember, we pray, Lord, hear our prayer. For the salvation of the world. May the Lord who is our shepherd provide for all in need, guide and protect them, and bring them to a place where the wise and just will shine like the stars, we pray, Lord, hear our prayer. For all who gather at the table of the Lord. May the celebration of the Eucharist show that to live with Christ we must imitate his sacrifice of suffering love, we pray, Lord, hear our prayer. For the church, the community of believers. May we experience communion with God, one another, the saints, and all who have gone before us in faith, we pray, Lord, hear our prayer. God of eternal life, none who have faith in you are lost. Listen to our prayerful words of faith, and lead us to our own final glory, where we will dwell in you and with your Son and the Holy Spirit, forever.

Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed (All Souls’ Day), Cycle A

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Now and forever

Funeral, Sacrament-based, Holy Day, Holiday, Special Occasion - Sample homilies to be adapted for your use

Occasion: Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed (All Souls’ Day) "Since our departed brothers and sisters believed in the mystery of the Resurrection," one of the prayers in the Mass for this day says, "let them share the joys and blessings of the life to come." These words say much about why we gather to pray today. We remember that those who have gone before us believed, and we remember what they believed in—eternal life. We ask God to welcome them into that life. Of course when we remember the dead we think first of our departed loved ones and friends. And we enlarge the circle to take in all Christians who have died. All the faithful departed: That is the name of today's feast. Scripture tells us the Jewish community was praying for the departed 200 years before Christ, and the earliest Christians prayed for their dead from almost the very beginning. This feast has been around for a long time, too, dating in one form or another from over 1,000 years ago. That history testifies to the human need to ask for a safe passage for the dead as they enter on their final journey to be with God forever. The church also calls today a commemoration, a call to remember. Remembering, though, can mean a lot more than only bringing someone or something to mind. When Christians remember, unexpected and powerful things happen. When Christians remember, they reach into the past and bring it into the present. That's what happens in the Eucharist: The real presence of Christ comes into the present and shines its light into the future. The church also calls today a commemoration, a call to remember. When we pray for the departed, then, we are helping to make real our hope in eternal life—a hope begun in Christ, proclaimed in the gospel, raised with him, and living forever. In Jesus "who rose from the dead," we pray in the Mass, "our hope of resurrection dawned." Yesterday was the Solemnity of All Saints, which celebrated the connection between those in heaven and on earth. These two days taken together bear a powerful message: The risen Jesus is the hope of the deadand the living. Whether on our earthly pilgrimage or already beyond it, we are drawn into the love of God. Beyond the faithful departed, though, we can widen our circle of prayer even further and pray as well for all who have died, especially those who met death violently, alone, or without faith. When in 1915 the pope established today's feast for the whole church, he had in mind the carnage of the First World War. Surely today our prayers should include the victims of wars, famines, epidemics, that the solace and presence of God they may have lacked at death is theirs now. We might even consider a prayer for those who have hurt us, who very much need prayers. "Pray for those who persecute you," Jesus taught in the gospels. We can offer prayers of action as well. Can you sow peace where there is conflict, love where there is hate, generosity where there is self-centeredness, hope where there is despair, healing where there is hurt? When the theologian Karl Rahner reached his 80th birthday, he was asked to reflect on that milestone. "Eighty years is a long time," he said. "But for all of us the lifetime assigned to us is the short moment in which what is meant to be comes to be." To live in communion with God and one another—both the living and the dead, who are really the eternally living: That is what our lives are meant to be, and if we live that way, it will come to be.

Authors Joel Schorn

holy day/feast all the faithful departed
As we die we also live

Funeral, Sacrament-based, Holy Day, Holiday, Special Occasion - Sample homilies to be adapted for your use

Occasion: Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed (All Souls’ Day) Today we remember those whom we have known and loved and have gone before us, those who nourished us, loved us, and in some way have made us who we are today. Even with their faults and failings, we loved them and their passing has left an emptiness in our homes and in our hearts. Take a moment now in silence and one by one bring their memory into your consciousness. (Allow some time for silence.) Today say a prayer of gratitude for them because in their goodness, and even in their idiosyncrasies, they have been a blessing for us. They are our “cloud of witnesses,” as Saint Paul calls them. They are our personal saints. And somehow in the mystery of God’s love they are not lost to us, only separated for a short time. We simply come to know them in a different way. I watched a dear friend care for her husband as his illness grew worse. Finally, the last two weeks, he was hospitalized. It is such an incredible journey, an awesome privilege to accompany someone who is dying. His wife and five sons visited during the day and they rotated spending the night at the hospital. One day, as I entered the room, the patient in the next bed grabbed my sleeve and said, “All I see here is love walking by.” Yes, how true! Twenty years have passed; slowly the space created by his absence has healed. There have been holidays, graduations, weddings, and grandchildren and he has always been present; first in tears, now in stories and laughter, and always in prayers. Today we may also remember people we did not meet on this earth. Perhaps from reading, Thomas Merton or Teilhard de Chardin has become a special friend. For me it’s my maternal grandmother who died long before I was born. I came to know her only through the stories my mother told. I came to appreciate her courage, perseverance, and compassion. Though we have met only in prayer, I have this sense that she is on the other side of the veil, rooting for me. I feel certain that she will greet me when my time comes. Is this only the product of a wild imagination? Perhaps! But then again we proclaim our belief in the communion of saints—both the living and the dead—one family in Christ Jesus. Inevitably, remembering those who have died brings up the mystery of our own mortality. We live in a death-denying culture. “Use this and you’ll live longer,” the ads tell us, or at least you’ll look 20 years younger. Yet dying people often shift their priorities. They seem to cherish each day. They find joy in simple things. Inevitably, remembering those who have died brings up the mystery of our own mortality. We live in a death-denying culture. “Use this and you’ll live longer,” the ads tell us, or at least you’ll look 20 years younger. Yet dying people often shift their priorities. They seem to cherish each day. They find joy in simple things. Many years ago I heard Henri Nouwen speak about the spiritual life and he told a story about his own brush with death. If I remember correctly, he had been in an accident and was not expected to live. During a long recovery, Nouwen came to understand that forgiveness was the most important thing. He made it a point to ask forgiveness of people he thought he had offended. He let go of the anger and resentment he had toward people who had hurt him. If this is a way to die, it is also a way to live. Jesus not only recommended forgiveness but made it crystal clear in his conversation with Saint Peter: Forgive not seven times but 70 times seven. Jesus also makes the point in teaching us to pray. “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” That’s a mouthful if you are holding onto anger and resentment. For years I struggled with that part of the prayer because in my heart I held a grudge, or two or three. I certainly didn’t want God to treat me as I was treating others. It’s so human to want revenge, and it easily becomes a habit. Is there a way out? Yes, and it’s so simple and yet so profound: Ask for the grace to forgive and let go. Just ask! God’s grace allows us to live in freedom; free from the “eye for an eye” mentality; free to live in peace; free to love not only others but ourselves, too. It reminds me of the Prayer of St. Francis: It is in giving that we receive; It is in pardoning that we are pardoned And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Authors Catherine Collins

holy day/feast all the faithful departed
Nothing God-given is lost

Funeral, Sacrament-based, Holy Day, Holiday, Special Occasion - Sample homilies to be adapted for your use

Occasion: Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed (All Souls’ Day) Like most folks, Catholics are ambivalent about death. As a friend pointed out: "If Catholics believe that dying means entering heaven and being in Jesus' presence, why are we so afraid of it?" But at some level, most of us are. Even Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, who in his last illness astonished Chicago reporters by talking so openly and serenely about his impending death, admitted that there were times when he simply wept at the thought of the coming end of his life. On the other hand Catholics are probably more comfortable with wakes, funerals, and prayers for the dead than even many other Christian traditions. As an altar server in the 1950s I spent many mornings of my 7th- and 8th-grade years in funeral homes and at funeral Masses so that at least the idea of death began to lose its sting. Of course then there was also that grey afternoon when all eight grades were marched a couple of blocks away to a funeral home to pray the Rosary for a classmate, struck and killed by a truck. The mother of American poetry, Emily Dickinson, also had a similar familiar ease with death, perhaps because from her upstairs bedroom where she wrote a thousand poems—many referring to death—she could see frequent cemetery processions as her fellow Amherst, Massachusetts citizens were laid to rest. Eventually death became so commonplace that she could picture him as a companionable suitor: “Because I could not stop for Death, / He kindly stopped for me; / The carriage held but just ourselves / And Immortality. . . .” A marvelous poem, but Catholics do not settle for resignation to a reality Dickinson seems at ease with; rather we see death for what it is while also seeing, with the eyes of faith, what is beyond it: the promise of Christ that he would lose none of those who belong to him. Death is and always will be loss. It will always breathe a certain chill, but ultimately it must yield before the face of faith, of hope, and of a love so great and true that in one place and time someone loved us so much that he laid down his life in place of our own. Death is and always will be loss. It will always breathe a certain chill, but ultimately it must yield before the face of faith, of hope, and of a love so great and true that in one place and time someone loved us so much that he laid down his life in place of our own. Like the New Testament writers we hear today–and doubtless largely because of their testimony–we believe in life beyond death. Those writers based their faith not only on the ancient Hebrew concept of a shadowy abode of the dead, nor on the Greek philosophical idea of the immortality of the soul, nor even on the burgeoning belief of some Jews of Jesus' day in a general resurrection of the dead. Rather, they—and we—build our hope for eternal life first and foremost on the resurrection of Jesus Christ as “the firstborn from the dead” (Colossians 1:18). We may or may not yet be so filled with faith as to call it, as Saint Francis of Assisi did, "Sister Death," but at least we can spend this sober day not only praying for our dead but remembering them by putting them together again in the faith about which Jesus said, “This is the will of the one who sent me, that I should not lose anything of what he gave me, but that I should raise it [on] the last day” (John 6:39), “and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back again and take you to myself, so that where I am you also may be” (John 14:3). Finally, in remembering the holy souls, our own beloved dead, we may call upon another Christian believer who in a poem personifies death only so that he might ridicule its presumption of power. “O Death, be not proud!” John Donne begins his holy sonnet, and in a stroke of Easter exultation concludes, “One short sleep past, we wake eternally, / And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.”

Authors Father Larry Janowski O.F.M.

holy day/feast all the faithful departed
Prayers

02 Nov 2008 - Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed (All Souls’ Day), Cycle A

The universal prayer As the days become shorter, we bring to mind those who have died and contemplate our own homecoming to God. Let us offer our prayers, with hope in God and in loving response to all who have ever prayed for us. For all the faithful departed. May those who have fallen asleep in the Lord find eternal life and be raised on the last day, especially those we now remember, we pray, Lord, hear our prayer. For the salvation of the world. May the Lord who is our shepherd provide for all in need, guide and protect them, and bring them to a place where the wise and just will shine like the stars, we pray, Lord, hear our prayer. For all who gather at the table of the Lord. May the celebration of the Eucharist show that to live with Christ we must imitate his sacrifice of suffering love, we pray, Lord, hear our prayer. For the church, the community of believers. May we experience communion with God, one another, the saints, and all who have gone before us in faith, we pray, Lord, hear our prayer. God of eternal life, none who have faith in you are lost. Listen to our prayerful words of faith, and lead us to our own final glory, where we will dwell in you and with your Son and the Holy Spirit, forever.

Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed (All Souls’ Day), Cycle A

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