Yesterday, on
All Saints’ Day, we reflected that we are never alone. I told you what Pope
Benedict XVI said at his installation of Bishop of Rome in April 2005: “Those
who believe are never alone B neither in life nor in death.@ God never intended us to be Lone
Rangers, I said. In baptism he made us members of his great family, the
Catholic Church. He wants us to support one another. One way we do so is by
praying for one another.
Our present
Pope Francis is quite different from his predecessor. Yet he proclaims the same
gospel. Here is something he said on All Souls’ Day two years ago. “The communion of Saints goes beyond earthly life, it goes
beyond death and lasts forever. This union among us, goes beyond and continues
in the afterlife; it is a spiritual union that stems from Baptism is not
severed by death but, thanks to the Resurrection of Christ, is destined to find
its fullness in eternal life. There is a profound and indissoluble bond among
all those who are still pilgrims in this world - among us - and those who have
crossed the threshold of death to enter into eternity. All the baptized down
here on earth, the souls in Purgatory and all the Blessed who are already in Paradise make up one great family. This communion between
earth and Heaven is brought about especially through intercessory prayer.”
Intercessory
prayer (also called suffrages) refers to our prayer for the departed, and to their prayer for us. He is what
the Catechism says. “The Church in its pilgrim members [that is in us who are
still alive], from the very earliest days of the Christian religion, has
honored with great respect the memory of the dead and ‘because it is a holy and
a wholesome thought to pray for the dead that they may be loosed from their
sins’ she offers her suffrages for them. Our prayer for them is capable not
only of helping them but also of making their intercession for us effective.”
(No. 958)
This
is what we do in a special way on All Souls’ Day.
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