All Souls’ Day - November 2
Readings: Wisdom 3:1–9; Romans 5:5–11; John 6:37–40

Every year on this day, the Church invites us to do something very human — to remember.
We remember faces, voices, laughter, and gestures. We remember the people who once sat next to us at family dinners, sang next to us in the pews, called us on the phone, and told us stories we’ve heard a hundred times. Some of them left us years ago; for others, the loss is still fresh and raw. But for all of them, we gather today to pray — because love does not end when breath leaves the body.
When I was a child, I remember visiting cemeteries with my parents in early November. We would light candles and place flowers on the graves of our grandparents. I didn’t fully understand it then, but I could sense something sacred about it — the quiet, the light flickering in the cold air, the whispers of prayer. My mother once said to me, “This is what love looks like after death.” That stayed with me. It’s true — prayer is what love looks like when the person we love is no longer physically with us.
The Hand of God
Our first reading from the Book of Wisdom gives us one of the most comforting lines in all of Scripture:
“The souls of the just are in the hand of God, and no torment shall touch them.”
There is something profoundly reassuring about that image — being in the hand of God. It’s not a distant, abstract promise. It’s intimate and gentle. Think of how you might hold a small bird that’s fallen from its nest, or a newborn baby’s fragile hand curling around your finger. That’s how God holds our loved ones. Not as memories, but as living souls, cherished and secure.
Sometimes we fear that the ones we’ve lost are somehow far away or forgotten. But if they are in God’s hand, they are closer to us than we can imagine — because God’s hand holds us too. Life and death are not two separate worlds; they are connected through the love of the One who conquered death.

St. Paul, in the second reading, reminds us that “hope does not disappoint.” That hope is not wishful thinking. It is the certainty that because Christ died and rose again, death no longer has the final word.
I once heard the story of an elderly man named George who used to visit the grave of his wife every single day. Rain or shine, he’d bring a little folding chair, sit by her stone, and talk to her for half an hour. One day, a younger man who jogged through the cemetery stopped and said, “You must really miss her.” George smiled and said, “Oh, I do. But you know, I don’t come here because she’s gone. I come here because love doesn’t have an expiration date.”
That’s what All Souls’ Day is all about — a love that doesn’t expire. Our prayers today are not sentimental rituals; they’re acts of love that reach across the veil between this life and the next. When we pray for the departed, we say to them, “I haven’t forgotten you. I still believe in God’s promise for you. I still love you.”

Grief can sometimes feel like walking in fog. You know the road is still there, but you can’t see very far ahead. It’s in those moments that faith becomes less about having answers and more about holding on — holding on to God, to hope, to love.
I remember once visiting a woman from the parish who had recently lost her husband. She told me, “Father, I can’t even pray right now.” I said, “That’s alright. The Church is praying for you.” And she began to cry — not because I said something profound, but because she realized she wasn’t alone. That’s what this feast reminds us: no one who dies in Christ is ever alone, and no one who grieves in Christ is ever alone either. The Church holds us all together — the saints in glory, the souls being purified, and we who are still on the journey.

Some people ask, “Father, if they’re already with God, why do we keep praying for them?” It’s a good question.
We pray for them because we believe in God’s mercy — that His love continues to heal and purify even after death. Just as we continue to grow and change in this life, so too the soul is perfected in love in the life to come.
Purgatory is not a punishment; it’s a graceful process of completion. It’s the soul’s way of being polished, so to speak, until it can reflect the full light of God’s glory. When we pray for the dead, we’re participating in that divine mercy — like adding a bit more warmth to the fire of love that’s preparing them for heaven.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus tells us:
“This is the will of my Father, that I should not lose anything of what He gave me, but that I should raise it on the last day.”
What a promise! God’s will is not that we be lost, but found; not that we be forgotten, but remembered forever.
Sometimes, when people lose faith, it’s because they have seen so much death that they begin to doubt life. But faith flips the perspective: we believe in so much life that death itself becomes a doorway, not an ending.
I often think of the story told by Corrie ten Boom, a woman who survived the Nazi concentration camps. Her sister, Betsie, died in the camp, and Corrie was devastated. Later, she wrote:
“The moment someone we love dies, something in us says, ‘That’s the end.’ But faith whispers, ‘No, it’s the beginning of forever.’”
That’s why, even at funerals, the Church dares to sing “Alleluia.” It’s not denial; it’s defiance — defiance against despair, rooted in the conviction that Christ has risen, and so shall we.

When we gather around the altar today, we’re not just a few people in a church building. We’re part of something immense — the Communion of Saints. Every time we celebrate Mass, heaven and earth meet. The saints rejoice with us, the souls in purgatory are comforted, and the faithful on earth are strengthened.
You know that moment during the Eucharistic Prayer when the priest says, “Remember our brothers and sisters who have fallen asleep in the hope of the resurrection…”? I always pause there for a heartbeat — because that’s when I silently whisper names. My grandparents. A priest friend. Parishioners I’ve buried. People you’ve loved and lost. They’re all there, at the table of mercy.
We may not see them, but faith tells us they are near. As one old Irish saying puts it: “The dead are not gone from us; they are only gone before us.”
If All Saints’ Day teaches us what heaven looks like, All Souls’ Day teaches us how to get there.
It reminds us to live each day as people preparing for eternity — to forgive, to love, to serve, to make peace. Because one day, others will remember us, too. And how we live now will shape what they will pray for then.
So maybe this week, light a candle for someone you love. Say a prayer for a soul who may have no one else to pray for them. Visit a cemetery, not as a place of fear, but of faith. And while you’re there, thank God for the people who helped you believe, laugh, and love a little more deeply.
Because in the end, it’s all about love — the love that never dies, the love that leads us home.
Brothers and sisters, that’s what today is all about: remembering in love, trusting in mercy, and hoping in resurrection.
The souls of the just are in the hand of God — and so are we.