All Souls Day
Gospel Reflection for All Souls Day, November 2, 2025 - John 6:37-40
All that the Father giveth to me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me, I will not cast out. Because I came down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him that sent me. Now this is the will of the Father who sent me: that of all that he hath given me, I should lose nothing; but should raise it up again in the last day. And this is the will of my Father that sent me: that every one who seeth the Son, and believeth in him, may have life everlasting, and I will raise him up in the last day. (John 6:37-40 DRA)
For this reflection, I will be focusing on the readings in relation to the commemoration of All Souls Day. As Dr.
has noted, this day in the ancient Roman rite would be moved more appropriately to the following Monday, since Sunday should be reserved for feasts, not commemorations; additionally, this day is meant to pray for the Church Suffering, the holy souls in Purgatory, whereas the readings given for the Novus Ordo, like the new rite’s funeral setting, are presented as though all the dead are guaranteed of Heaven. But since this is the commemoration and readings most Catholics will hear today, I will focus on them.Following the wondrous feast of All Saints yesterday, the commemoration of All Souls is a poignant reminder, despite its obfuscation in the new rite, that the dead need our prayers. It is customary among Catholics, whenever someone dies, that we pray for the repose of his soul - we do not act as though he is already presumed to be in Heaven, “looking down on us” as Protestants often say, though we can and should hope for this. Instead, we recognize that, for adults, “all have sinned, and do need the glory of God.” (Rom 3:23) This is why, as Dr. Kwasniewski explained, the ancient Roman rite offers two different Requiem Masses: the normal penitential Mass for those above the age of reason, and a votive Mass of the angels for children, who are known with certainty to pass instantaneously from this life into eternal glory when they death. But for most adult Catholics, Purgatory is our most likely destination, if we are blessed to persevere in God’s charity to the end.
This stark realism often seems overly fearsome, negative or even doubtful of God’s infinite mercy to Protestants and even to many modern Catholics, formed as we are by the Novus Ordo and modern theology which rarely speak of the possibility of mortal sin or eternal damnation. But All Souls Day is what the saints have called a memento mori, a reminder of death, as well as what I would call a memento peccatoris, a reminder of sin, both the deprivation of communion with God into which all of us are born by our inheritance of original sin and the true horror of emptiness which personal sin bores into us, turning us away from God and rejecting all that He is.
The idea that all are guaranteed of Heaven, like the Protestant heresy of “once saved, always saved,” is ultimately a cop-out, feel-good placation which keeps us pacified and focused on worldly comfort instead of the divine mission of sainthood to which all of us, Christian and non-Christian, are called. All Souls Day, on the other hand, teaches us that we cannot know with certainty the state of our souls in this life, whether we are in God’s grace or not, and much less can we know with certainty the state of souls who have departed this world. Accordingly, we should pray fervently for all those who have passed away, that their purification in Purgatory, if God so blesses them to enter therein, will be brief and mild, and that they will pray for us even as we pray for them.
One of the greatest distinctions between Catholicism (and Orthodoxy) and Protestantism which I have noticed in my 17 years as a Catholic is that our Church is not individualistic – it is communal by nature. Just as the original sin of Adam and Eve was corporate, representing us all and affecting us all, so now as Catholics we do not live in isolation: instead, as St. Paul so beautifully exhorts us, “And therefore we also having so great a cloud of witnesses over our head, laying aside every weight and sin which surrounds us, let us run by patience to the fight proposed to us”. (Heb 12:1)
Instead of leapfrogging over two millennia of Christian history, of countless saints, magisterial clarifications, apostolic traditions and the accumulated devotion and quiet heroism of millions, reading and interpreting the Bible on our own and living our faith however we see fit, as Catholics we are intimately connected to those who came before us. We can study, honor, pray to and imitate the saints of history, from the time of Adam down to today, and we can pray for the souls who have gone before us all the way back to the beginning of human history.
This is one of the greatest blessings of being a Catholic. But if we forget about the poor souls in Purgatory, we will likewise be forgotten and thus lose out on the magnificent graces which can propel us straight into Heaven when we die. If we fail to take our eternal destiny seriously, excusing our sins and presuming our salvation, we will surely lose it. The readings for today apply more specifically to the saints and so would be more appropriate for yesterday’s feast, but the first reading provides us with an important reminder: “For if before men, indeed, they be punished, yet is their hope full of immortality; chastised a little, they shall be greatly blessed, because God tried them and found them worthy of himself. As gold in the furnace, he proved them, and as sacrificial offerings he took them to himself.”
As Catholics, we wear a crucifix, not a pillow, as my priest once told me, and as the Psalmist said, in this world we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, not through the security and bliss of Heaven. But it is precisely this proving through the fires of suffering by which God reforges us into saints, and if we willingly submit to it in this life and offer it to God for our penance and for the holy souls in Purgatory, we will be carried above their mountain by the holy angels and welcomed directly into Heaven when we die, as though we possessed the innocence of a child. Hence, as Our Lord said, “Amen I say to you, unless you be converted, and become as little children, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.” (Mt 18:3)
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