(The following excerpt for November First
is taken from The Liturgical Year by Dom Gueranger)
FEAST OF ALL SAINTS
“I saw a great multitude which no man could number, of all nations and tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne, and in sight of the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands: and they cried with a loud voice, saying: Salvation to our God!
“Time is no more; it is the human race eternally saved that is thus presented in vision to the prophet of Patmos. Our life of struggle and suffering on earth is, then, to have an end. Our long-lost race is to fill up the angelic ranks thinned by Satan’s revolt; and, uniting in the gratitude of the redeemed of the Lamb, the faithful spirits will sing with us: ‘Thanksgiving, honour, and power, and strength to our God for ever and ever!’
“And this shall be the end, as the apostle says; the end of death and suffering; the end of history and of its revolutions, which will then be explained. The old enemy, hurled down with his followers into the abyss, will live on only to witness his own eternal defeat. The Son of man, the Saviour of the world, will have delivered the kingdom to God His Father; and God, the last end of creation and of redemption, will be all in all.
“Long before the seer of the Apocalypse, Isaias sang : ‘I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and elevated, and His train filled the temple. And the Seraphim cried one to another, and said: Holy, holy, holy, the Lord God of hosts, all the earth is full of His glory.’ The train and fringes of God’s vesture are the elect, who are the adornment of the Word, the splendour of the Father. For since the Word has espoused our human nature, that nature is His glory, as He is the glory of God. The Bride herself is clothed with the justifications of the Saints; and when this glittering robe is perfected, the signal will be given for the end of time. This feast announces the ever-growing nearness of the eternal nuptials; for on it we annually celebrate the progress of the Bride’s preparations.
“Blessed are they that are called to the marriage-supper of the Lamb! Blessed are we all, who have received in Baptism the nuptial robe of holy charity, which entitles us to a seat at the heavenly banquet! Let us prepare ourselves for the unspeakable destiny reserved for us by love. To this end are directed all the labours of this life: toils, struggles, sufferings for God’s sake, all adorn with priceless jewels the garment of grace, the clothing of the elect. Blessed are they that mourn!
“They that have gone before us, wept as they turned the furrows and cast in the seed; but now their triumphant joy overflows upon us as an anticipated glory in this valley of tears. Without waiting for the dawn of eternity, the present solemnity gives us to enter by hope into the land of light, whither our fathers have followed Jesus the divine forerunner. Do not the thorns of suffering lose their sharpness, at the sight of the eternal joys into which they are to blossom? Does not the happiness of the dear departed cause a heavenly sweetness to mingle with our sorrow? Let us hearken to the chants of deliverance sung by those for whom we weep; little and great, this is the feast of them all, as it will one day be ours. At this season, when cold and darkness prevail, nature herself, stripping off her last adornments, seems to be preparing the world for the passage of the human race into the heavenly country. Let us, then, sing with the Psalmist: ‘I rejoiced at the things that were said to me: We shall go into the house of the Lord. Our feet as yet stand only in thy outer courts; but we see thy building ever going on, O Jerusalem, city of peace, compacted together in concord and love. To thee do the tribes go up, the tribes of the Lord, praising the name of the Lord; thy vacant seats are being filled up. May all good things be for them that love thee, O Jerusalem; may peace be in thy strength, and abundance in thy towers. For the sake of my brethren and of my neighbours, who are already thy inhabitants, I take pleasure in thee; because of the Lord our God, whose dwelling thou art, I have placed in thee all my desire.’ ”
VESPERS OF THE DEAD
“. . .Truly this day is grand and beautiful. Earth, midway between heaven and purgatory, has united them together. The wonderful mystery of the communion of saints is revealed in all its fulness. The immense family of the sons of God is shown to be one in love, while distinct in its three states of beatitude, trial, and purifying expiation: the trial and expiation being but temporary, the beatitude eternal. It is the fitting completion of the teaching given us through the entire year; and every day within the octave [November 1 – November 8]* we shall see the light increase.
“Meanwhile, every soul is recollected, pondering over the dearest and noblest memories. On leaving the home of God, let our thoughts linger lovingly upon those who have the best claim to them. It is the feast of our beloved dead. Let us hear their suppliant voices in the plaintive tones that, from belfry to belfry throughout the Christian world, are ushering in this dark November night. This evening or to-morrow they will expect us to visit them at the tombs where their mortal remains rest in peace. Let us pray for them; and let us also pray to them: we need never be afraid to speak to them of the interests that were dear to them before God. For God loves them; and, as His justice keeps them in an utter inability to help themselves, He makes amends to His goodness by hearing them all the more willingly on behalf of others. . . .”
FIRST DAY OF NOVEMBER
A Fervent Day of Prayer that Many Souls in Purgatory
May Be Admitted to the Joys of Paradise
Taken from Forget-Me-Nots from Many Gardens,
or Thirty Days’ Devotion to the Holy Souls (1904)
aka Stories About Purgatory and What They Reveal,
Compiled from Traditional Sources
by An Ursuline Nun of Sligo, Ireland
“All Saints—All Souls! It was well done to place thus close together these two beautiful solemnities. There is a fitness, too, in this season of the fall of the leaf for such a commemoration of the departed. The flowers and green leaves of May, the yellow harvests and the warm glow of August, would be out of place upon All Souls’ Day. Better to sing this universal Requiem when Nature herself has laid aside the garments of her gladness, when the warm blood of youth is no longer coursing through the earth’s veins, when the very sunshine seems chill and sad, and the wind through the naked branches is a dirge. But at whatever period they come, All Saints [November 1] and All Souls [November 2] should come together. And they come together, though one might be tempted, in all reverence, to wish that the order of their coming were reversed. If the commemoration of All Souls came first, we might hope that the suffrages of all the Church Militant on that day, joined with the prayers of all the Church Triumphant, might avail much to the relief of the Suffering Church; might procure the discharge of many, perhaps, amongst the patient victims detained in that prison house of mercy, and so increase the hosts of those honoured in the Festival of All Saints. Or is it only by a tender after-thought, as it were, that the Church, having rejoiced in the glory of those of her children who have secured their crown in Heaven, turns with affectionate compassion to those others who are not yet there, though they are no longer here, whose earthly fight is over, but whose heavenly happiness is not yet attained? Would that all who are gone were gone to join that multitude which no man can number, thronging the Courts of Heaven! But so many disappoint the yearnings of the Heart of Jesus. So many live and die as if Jesus had not lived and died for them. And even of those who die in the grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ, how few are found ‘with the perfect sheen of Heaven upon them’! How few are pure enough, at once, after closing their eyes upon this sinful world, to open them to the full piercing light of glory, to meet, without shrinking, the all-discerning Eye of the God of Infinite Purity! And we are living under that same Eye, and we are labouring for that Heaven which the Saints have not earned too dearly, and for which the Holy Souls are not undergoing too severe a preparation. Have we worked and prayed during the past year as if we believed this?
“These and other general lessons are urged upon us by the twin Feasts with which November opens—if, indeed, the 2nd of November can be called a feast—a more eager longing for the society of the blessed in Heaven, a deeper horror for sin, a keener thirst for the glory of God and for the increase of grace and merit in our own souls, and a more intense reverence for the majesty and holiness of God thus ‘wonderful in His Saints,’ and thus rigid in the purification of the Holy Souls.
“But there is for each of these solemnities one peculiar object having its counterpart amongst the objects of the other. As All Saints’ Day may well be supposed to offer compensation to such of the blessed as have no special festival during the year, so the suffrages of All Souls’ Day supply what is wanting in the individual charity of the faithful, and may be devoted chiefly to the most neglected of the Holy Souls—those who have no friends to pray for them. No doubt there are many such: some with no loving hearts to cherish their memory—and even the most loving hearts cannot keep up a practical remembrance of the departed during many years of our short lifetime. The Purgatory of many souls may last very many lifetimes. One who is hardly there now, for he ended a very holy life by a very holy death, said on his deathbed: ‘Eternity is so long that I think Purgatory must be long, too. You must help me, then, with prayers. Even in religion we are apt to forget our deceased brothers, relying too much on their having died religious.’
“Before the month closes which is opening now, may our hearts have grown more pleasing to the Heart of Jesus and the Heart of Mary—more dear to Them because more like to Them; and, as all belongs to Jesus, let us give to Mary a mother’s share in all the days of our lives, especially in these two sacred days which invite us to love and honour her as Queen of All Saints and Compassionate Mother of the Suffering Souls.”
“Ah! turn to Jesus, Mother! turn,
And call Him by His tenderest names.
Pray for the holy souls that burn
This hour amid the cleansing flames.”
—Rev. Matthew Russell, S.J.
* NOTE from the Enchiridion of Indulgences:
“A plenary indulgence, applicable only to the souls in purgatory,
is granted to the faithful who, on any and each day from November 1 to 8,
devoutly visit a cemetery and pray, if only mentally, for the departed.”