This week the calendar turns the page from October to November. Each month seems to have its own special role to play in our Catholic faith. For example, December obviously is the month of Christmas. April is typically the season for Easter and the resurrection.

 

November claims its place in the celebration of our Catholic faith by starting off with two important feast days. Those are All Saints Day, Nov. 1, and All Souls Day on Nov. 2.

 

The Solemnity of All Saints is of such importance that it is a Holy Day of Obligation. This year, because it fell on a Monday, that celebration was not obligatory.

 

Funny, isn’t it? To say that anything is an obligation in our individualistic society that distrusts authority and institutions immediately sounds like a burden. However, the very idea of going to Mass on that day should be a source of attraction and joy to us. That day is a celebration of all those blessed in the joy of heaven, whether they are known and canonized or unknown to us from all time. Our prayers and attendance at Mass add nothing to the fullness of their joy in Christ which has already been given to them.

 

Still, we celebrate them because it is a fundamental element of our Catholic faith that they are not simply enjoying each other endlessly in the company of the most Blessed Trinity. Rather, they are united to the will and plan of God which desires that we join them. For that reason, all the saints are in constant prayer for us, asking for the grace so that we will use our free will and our limited time in this world to conform our minds and hearts to Christ.

 

Additionally, it is the experience of the Church and the faithful that the examples of the lives of the saints give us models to follow as well as encouragement. By their stories we know that the challenges that we live through in this life can be met and transformed into the path to our own everlasting fulfillment in heaven.

 

The Church wisely follows this celebration with our remembrance of all the souls in purgatory on the following day. This day often mixes our sorrow of this life with the reaffirmation of the hope that only faith can give us.

 

For many, All Souls Day can be sorrowful. It is often a day that people reflect upon those who were important to them in this life who have already died. It is moving to offer special Masses that day, often at a cemetery, and to meet husbands or wives who come to pray for and often continue to grieve for the loss of their spouse.

 

However, the act of gathering with others who share faith in the resurrection and pray for the dead is a profound reason for consolation. Even more, the faith of the Church through which God grants the opportunity for souls to be finally and fully purified after death is its own sense of joy. Absent mortal sin, one who dies not completely perfected can attain that final state of complete holiness in what we call purgatory.

 

Even more, God grants us, the living in this world, the privilege of assisting in that final purification by our prayers. In that way we can benefit those whom we loved and who have already gone as well as the unknown souls whom we will meet one day in heaven.

 

We often hear people ask in this time of declining faith, “What can I do to live my faith better and more fully?” Parents wonder what they can do to strengthen the faith of their children so that they do not fall away as so many do. Mass, prayers and understanding the celebration of the seasons and holy days of the Church is a great place to start.