Dear friend,<\/p>\n
The past week we celebrated All Hallows\u2019 Eve, All Saints\u2019 Day, and All Souls\u2019 Day. These spiritual days encourage us to reflect on the beauty of our Catholic Christian faith and the dignity of every soul. We all came from God and we all will return to God. The gift of the Life, Death and Resurrection of Jesus is all about revealing the truth of God and bringing all souls to salvation. All Saints\u2019 Day gives us the opportunity to thank God for the example of all the saints in heaven, those we know and those we don\u2019t. The Church has the process to canonize saints to investigate a saint\u2019s life and miraculous intercession in order to establish that saint must be with God in heaven. However, as Christians we believe every soul in heaven is a saint, as heaven is God\u2019s house of perfection. There are thousands of canonized saints in our Church tradition, but there are millions of saints in heaven that we don\u2019t recognize on our Church calendar. All Saints\u2019 Day gives us the opportunity to recognize the saints we know as well as the saints we don\u2019t, while we ask all of them to pray for us.<\/p>\n
On the celebration of All Souls\u2019 Day, we remember and celebrate all of our faithful departed. The month of November is set aside to remember our deceased loved ones and pray for their eternal salvation. The Bible is clear that we are all sinners and fall short of the glory of God. None of us can save oneself. We all need Jesus the savior. As we remember all our deceased loved ones, the Church invites us to pray for forgiveness and mercy. At death we are all judged by God, as each person then passes to heaven, hell or purgatory. Heaven and hell are eternal states of existence, while the state of purgatory is a time of God purifying a soul prior to entering heaven. Since heaven is God\u2019s house and God is perfect, then everyone in heaven must be perfect.\u00a0 Purgatory purifies the soul for heavenly entrance. The Bible reveals that the greatest gift of God to humans is freedom. We are encouraged by the Church to use our freedom to pray God forgive all our deceased loved ones that they might pass from death into eternal life. We offer a Mass, or say the Mass Intention, for our deceased loved ones, that the Father might take the efficacious grace of Jesus Christ Crucified and apply it to our deceased loved ones. While we don\u2019t know that exact state of existence in purgatory or the length of one\u2019s presence in the purgatory state, we know God honors the prayers of those who use their freedom to prayer for others and to do works of love and sacrifice. The month of November gives us the opportunity to visit cemeteries or the graves of our loved ones as we pray for their salvation and thank God for the gift of life.<\/p>\n