All Souls Day

All Souls 2023

Dear friends,
Today we remember all our dear deceased brothers and sisters in a single celebration. The fact of remembering in prayer our relatives and friends who have concluded their earthly mission is a gesture of great human value that challenges aspects of the mentality that often dominates in the world: forgetfulness. While everyone tends to forget the past, we remember all our deceased loved ones in prayer.

Sometimes, the world rushes toward the future. It wants to forget those who lived in the past along with the values they communicated to us by our ancestors. History and the past seem like a brake that does not allow us to dream of a different future. But this is not the case for us Christians and for many people who belong to different religions. The past is not a burden, on the contrary the past is a resource to face the future.

Let's think of a tree: the branches, leaves, flowers, and fruits cannot develop if the roots are missing. Only the roots can strengthen the future and the positive development of our lives.

This is why we remember in our prayers our deceased relatives and friends and all those who were important in our lives. They are our roots because they communicated to us the faith and values of Christianity. Their testimony gives us hope and encourages us to look confidently at our problems. Praying for our deceased helps us strengthen the relationship between generations, parents and children, and grandparents and grandchildren. 

Furthermore, remembering in prayer on this day all our dearly departed, means recognizing a great hope beyond history and present life, especially for us Christians.

When a loved one ends his earthly life, we feel great pain. We feel that something important in life has moved away from us. But from the perspective of the Christian faith, those who have concluded their earthly life do not end up in nothingness because the Word of God became flesh and came to live among us. Jesus took our death upon himself and defeated it forever. Jesus rose from the dead and opened the way to resurrection and victory over death for us, too.

What changes in our lives knowing that death has been conquered? This involves a different way of experiencing relationships and looking at life. Our faith is not content to speak of the immortality of our souls but of the resurrection of the flesh. For this reason, we must not live in worry and fear because Jesus conquered death. What we experience in our lifetime is destined for eternity. We are inscribing something eternal in time.

Indeed, we live in the joyful hope of meeting all our dearly departed in heaven: one day, we will meet again, we will see the faces of those we loved on earth again, and we will return to listen to their voice and shake their hands, with our hearts full of joy, an infinite joy that no one can ever take away from us.

Brothers and sisters, by remembering our deceased brothers and sisters in prayer, we feel supported on our earthly journey. We live as a family, and our daily work and commitment to a more fraternal world are animated by great Christian hope.

The detachment and distance that we now experience towards our dear deceased brothers and sisters, purifies our hearts and prepares us for eternal life. Praying for them also means helping them in their personal encounter with Jesus the Good Shepherd. We pray for all the deceased so they may be freed from all their sins and reach the full communion of saints.

It is beautiful that after celebrating the solemnity of all the saints, today, the liturgy invites us to pray for all the souls of the deceased. The goal of all people is eternal life and not death. While we entrust all the souls of the deceased to the mercy of God, we live in this world in the blessed hope of meeting again in the joy of the saints.

Lord Jesus invites us to spend the days of our earthly life doing good, especially towards the poor and needy, and giving good testimony to the joy of the gospel.

May Our Lady of Arabia intercede for all the deceased so they may be welcomed into the joy of paradise and help us persevere in goodness and love.