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Contents: Volume 2 November 2, 2025
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****************************************************** Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed November 2, 2025
Wisdom 3:1-9; Responsorial Psalm 23; Letter to the Romans 5:5-11;
After celebrating the saints in heaven we come to celebrating all souls who may need some additional buffing and polish to enter as full citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven. In a sense this celebration appears to be a “just in case” plea to God for the polishing and buffing to be quickly accomplished. It’s that lingering doubt in our minds that perhaps friends, relatives, and acquaintances didn’t quite make the grade and need some work on their house in the Kingdom. This is the house they built in faith and with good works. There is a subtraction of the sum of good works by the deeds that denied the Way of the Messiah and by failures of faith in daily living. When we view human life, our living, in a metaphor of seeds planted by parents with an addition of Divine DNA of the Trinity, human life and choices, goals, failures and achievements result in personal growth – well, or personal decay. If we live our lives among briars, thistles, weeds that rob the soil in which we are planted we struggle. We find strength and courage by living among other plants of faith and growth. The company we keep encourages us to live in an environment of growth. Faith carries us forward during buffets by tornados and hurricanes of life. Our living is a personal period for us during which by choices and associations we either grow in character, in fullness of the spark of Divine DNA we received with life given us or we decay and become less and less. We become empty shells lacking production of fruit.
Such thinking is speculative. Death is an experience we all will endure. No one get finished with life without dying to this present life. What happens, how does it work? No one has been there and come back to tell us: well Jesus died and came back. Does any one have an accounting from Jesus how the experience works? Jesus’ dying was an awful struggle. Most die without such suffering, through some do.
Yesterday we celebrated the great joy of those we lived with, those who lived before us, of those who were examples of faith and of steadfast efforts to grow. We live because of ancestors. In addition we are nurtured and tended by God and God’s angels. Our celebration yesterday was a joy filled celebration. We celebrate the achievements of parents, parishioners, and communities tried in the crucible of life. Those all saints have it made. They are in the Kingdom of Heaven while we continue in this vale of tears. The theology of the Mystical Body of Christ denies that. The Church is made up of those who have attained union with God after their struggle, of those who are subject to being buffed and polished so as not to be sore thumbs in the Kingdom of Heaven, and those of us on earth still, growing and/or decaying. We are able to remain in touch with them in prayer and memory. Those in Heaven retain consciousness and thus retain memories of us. It’s like we have one foot in heaven with them. We are connected in the Body of the Lord. Communion does that for us, connects us and heals us of what causes us to decay. We who participate in Eucharist are connected.
Looking forward to next Sunday’s liturgy of the Word, we celebrate the dedication of the Basilica of the Lateran in Rome. We celebrate what a central building means to us as Christians. Just as those ancient buildings built of fitted stone and brick form a structure sheltering and containing the faith and good works of Christians, so also Basilicas, Cathedrals and local churches are an outward sign of a community built of living stones. Those buildings are works of art and engineering made of solid, unmoving, durable materials. The art and engineering these buildings depict is a structure of living stones, us who practice the Way of Jesus. We are a living body made up of those who lived the Way, of those who lived the way and need some buffing and polish to fit in the Kingdom, and us who continue to walk in the Way of the Lord.
On this feast day of All Souls, we strive for connection with those who passed through the portal of death. We pray their buffing and polishing will be quick and thorough. We pray they quickly join those whose robes were washed in the Blood of the Lamb, that Suffering Servant of Isaiah during exile and slavery in Babylon. This feast day, let us recall those who have gone before. Let us think of and pray about the good they did and the legacy they created. In that praise and gratitude we polish their images and character so they can stand before God and support our joys, our sorrows, our victories and our failures.
Dennis Keller <Dennis@PreacherExchange.com>
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Blessings, Dr. Lanie LeBlanc OP Southern Dominican Laity
****************************************************** ****************************************************** ****************************************************** 4. ****************************************************** ****************************************************** 5. ****************************************************** Volume 2 is for you. These reflections follow the Liturgical Calendar and appear here about mid week each week. They are written by various guest authors. If you would like to submit a reflection of your own, then click here to send an email request to post to the Webmaster. Deadline is Monday morning of each week for the upcoming Sunday.
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A service of The Order of Preachers,
The Dominicans. (form revised 10/13/2025) |
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