Next weekend, we celebrate the two feasts of all the saints and all souls. Taken together, they remind us of a profoundly Catholic understanding of our human nature and the invitation to eternal life given to every human person.
All Saints Day on Nov. 1 honors, as it says, all the saints. In that context, we might find our attention or memory drawn to our favorite saints that we have encountered, perhaps in school or religious education, or in the practice of our faith over time.
I am regularly impressed by talking to young people at confirmation ceremonies who said they chose their confirmation saint after doing a research exercise on them at school years earlier. In other words, they looked into those saints and found inspiration or a sense of closeness that has endured.
Other times, one can encounter a reference to a saint of long ago that one has never heard of previously. It is a reminder that the example of holiness is found in every generation. Even if they have faded from the wider Church’s memory in our time, their holiness continues.
In short, to be a saint is to “have finished the race [and] have kept the faith” and so to have “received the crown of righteousness” in heaven (cf 2 Tim, 4: 7-8). All who are now in heaven, be they canonized saints or those holy friends, neighbors, teachers, siblings, parents or grandparents that we have known in life, all are the saints whom we honor on All Saints Day.
They are all saints because “Every man receives his eternal recompense in his immortal soul from the moment of his death in a particular judgment by Christ, the judge of the living and the dead” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1051). They have been found worthy of life with Christ for all eternity, and it will not be taken from them.
But that state of blessedness with Christ is awaiting its completeness. “At the end of time, the Kingdom of God will come in its fullness. Then the just will reign with Christ for ever, glorified in body and soul” (CCC, 1060).
In short, immediately after death, we will receive the particular judgment of our life. The saints are those who have been judged worthy to be, even now, joined in soul to Christ in heaven. At the end of time, however, all humanity will appear in their bodies before Christ so that “the truth of each man’s relationship with God will be laid bare” (CCC, 1039). Here the saints will share in the resurrection to glory of the body that was Jesus’s resurrection on Easter Sunday.
On Nov. 2, we celebrate the Feast of All Souls. This reflects the depth of the Catholic faith that, “All who die in God’s grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven” (CCC, 1030).
This is the good news that after the struggle for holiness in this life, we do not have to die “perfect” to be with Christ. In God’s mercy, our final flaws may still be purified after death. For us the living, we are able to contribute to that purification by our prayers and especially by the sacrifice of the Mass offered on All Souls Day.
These two days remind us of the seriousness of life and its consequences for all eternity. If we live faithfully and well, the Lord invites us into His Father’s house. But if we have chosen to use our freedom to live for this world and not for Christ, the eternal loss of hell awaits.
Our task is to choose now. We must use our freedom to choose faith in Jesus, in His teaching, and in the hope of His resurrection from the dead. All Saints and All Souls days give us great hope, even as they remind us that God is just. It’s important that we take this message to heart.
