Silver prayer case on altar in sacristy chapel

Abbot Michael offered the first homily presented here at Mass for the School on the Solemnity of All Saints (Friday, November 1, 2024). The homilette that follows he gave the next morning at the Mass for the Commemoration of All Souls.

Yesterday was Halloween, which is just an old way of saying “All Saints Eve.” It has a complex history, but it became a way of warding off the dead-not-saints, who were being punished for their misdeeds by having to wander through this world as malevolent spirits, and a reminder to us not to become one of them. Today, of course is All Saints Day, when we remember and honor those who have died and who have fulfilled the destiny God willed for them by joining Him in heaven. Tomorrow is All Souls Day, when we will remember those who have died who are still in the process of fulfilling their destiny by being made ready to meet the saints and God face-to-face in heaven. Whether the evil spirits of ghost stories, or the saints or the souls being purified in purgatory, these beings are spirits, souls, the essential forms of human beings who have passed from this life into the next, the next very real life.

In the month of November we remember all those who have died and gone before us to that life. We have on the altar this silver case containing the names of all those we pray for this month. If there is someone dear to you who has died, a grandparent, an aunt or uncle or friend, anyone dear to you that you would like us to pray for, give us their name then we will put it in this case, or write their name in the book that will be on the altar in the back of the church and we will pray for them all through this month. In the month of November, as the year winds down, we also remember the last things we will face: death, judgment, heaven and hell. Those last two are where we will end up, after death, as determined by God’s judgment. One or the other.

The saints we honor today are those who are in heaven. We tend to think of heaven as a physical place, but it is a spiritual condition. You were made for it. You are a spirit with a body and God wants you in heaven someday. We are supposed to be saints, each one of you is meant to be a saint, created by God to be a saint. The saints can help you. They can help you here and they can help you get there. The saints’ spirits, their souls, are very alive, in fact more alive than we are. They are no longer subject to time and space: their very spirits live on with us and can help us. This is the meaning of that term we express our belief in when we say the Apostles creed: “the communion of the saints.” We pray to God through the saints and they can pray to God for us. It is useful to ask: What are you doing, how are you cooperating with God’s grace, to realize your eternal destiny of sainthood? It isn’t through great things that we become saints. Not many people can do, or have the opportunity to do, great things. The instructions we just heard Jesus give in today’s gospel, those things we call the Beatitudes, are not complicated or great in the eyes of the world but they are a formula for becoming a saint.

One of the most popular saints is Saint Thérèse of Lisieux. She lived a short life, dying in 1897 at 24 years of age, and she was ill for much of it. But she wanted to be a saint and she knew that God would not put that desire in her if it were not possible. She has become famous for teaching what is called “The Little Way” to become a saint. Her way is this:


That was her way. What is your way? There is a way for you. Saint John Henry Newman, an English saint and scholar of the late 19th century, put it this way. “God has created me to do Him some definite service. He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission. I may never know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next. I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons. He has not created me for naught. I shall do good; I shall do His work. I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place, while not intending it if I do but keep His commandments. Therefore, I will trust Him; Whatever I am, I can never be thrown away. If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him, in perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him. If I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him. He does nothing in vain. He knows what He is about. He may take away my friends. He may throw me among strangers. He may make me feel desolate, make my spirits sink, hide my future from me. Still, He knows what He is about.”

God does know what you are about. He knows what you can do, and what you can’t. He knows that you can become a saint. All saints, all souls: two sides of the same coin. And you and I are between them.

Today we remember those souls in purgatory. My grandmother came from a family of fourteen. My father from a family of twelve, my grandfather from a family of six. So as a child, I spent a lot of time in cemeteries. Not for funerals, but for visiting graves. My grandmother and my mother used to frequently go to the cemetery which was not very far from where we lived, very conveniently, and visited the graves of relatives. This was not a morbid excursion: it was rather beautiful. It was keeping alive in memory the relationships between people who had passed on. And at each one of the graves, we prayed.

We never assumed that any of those relatives were in heaven. My mother and my grandmother were well aware of things that at least they assumed those relatives needed to be purified of in purgatory. Things seem to have changed today. People seem to assume that people go immediately to heaven. But when we leave this earth, we are not finished, usually, in our spiritual development, and we do need to be purified. Our prayers can help those who are in this state of purgatory, and it is a great favor and mercy to those who are in purgatory that we pray for them, to assist in their purification. We trust in the mercy of God, that He will bring them and us to Him in heaven when we are ready. So we pray today for those souls. I am sure that you have people in mind that you want to pray for, people who are dear to you have passed on, and so do pray for them at this Mass, that God will bring them to Himself. And that in His mercy, we may someday join them.

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