ROCKFORD—Bishop David Malloy celebrated his annual All Souls Day Mass at Calvary Cemetery’s mausoleum on Nov. 2 in the early afternoon.

 

The setting was cheery with the bright sunshine and blue skies seen through the windows and doors.

“We’re here for the very best reasons, in this case to pray for the holy souls in purgatory,” Bishop Malloy said. 

 

“We’re here to deal with, in faith, a question that time and again we have been asking ourselves, especially if at this point we have lost loved ones … What happens to them? Particularly, because we can look at ourselves in the mirror and (say) I know that is not a perfect person.”

 

During his homily, the bishop expressed his enthusiasm and gratitude for purgatory.

 

“Here’s the story of purgatory: that God so loves us, so desires us, that He gives even the opportunity for that final purification after we have died,” he said. “If we are not in mortal sin, He will take us to Himself, and all of the work that we are doing here to try and conform ourselves to Christ, to be transformed, to allow the Mass, confession, our sacrifices to change us more and more to be like Christ, He gives us the opportunity for that final purification after death itself. That is the story of purgatory…

“It is the story of how great God’s love is for us, of the great news that has been given to us.”

 

Besides that great news, Bishop Malloy explained how God “allows our prayers even here and now to be effective in helping to bring about for the souls for whom we pray that final purification, that final union with God that we all seek. (And) it is such a hope and comfort to us to be praying for those whom we have loved.”

 

He spoke of the narrow gate, the narrow door described by Jesus in the Gospels, and that “not everyone will be able to go through it” because of the necessity to lay aside “our baggage, our sins, (and) all that is not of God.”

 

In our prayers for others, he added, “it is as if God allows us to sort of get behind and help push the person through, spiritually, to enter into the house of the Father, to find that completion, that love, that joy.

 

“Our prayers here, the Masses that we offer, give greater hope for us for our loved ones. And of course at the same time … we think about ourselves and our own souls.”

 

Some may feel that All Souls Day is a sad event, but Bishop Malloy insisted that Mass on that day “is not anything negative. It’s not something where we’re sadly reminding ourselves again of the one that we have lost. 

 

“It is hopeful, it is to immerse ourselves in the love of God that is so great that even after death He continues that purification so that we are fully and completely ready to be with Him.”