All Souls Day

Today we commemorate All Souls Day, which can be sometimes confusing to folks or disregarded by other folks as some relic of the past. On the most basic level, however, All Souls Day does something, in the context of Christian spirituality, that nearly every other culture and spirituality does: it is a way of remembering our dead loved ones. Even within our own American secular culture, we do this, most especially on Memorial Day, when we remember those who have died defending the nation in war.

But All Souls Day is about more than remembering our loved ones who have died, it is also an opportunity to pray for them and to ask their prayers for us. No, we are not hung up on souls lingering in purgatory, but I think we do have to acknowledge that, since we believe that in death "life has not ended, but changed" the souls of our departed loved ones - indeed all those who have gone before us - might just well need or want our prayers.

I always want and need the prayers of others. That is especially true when facing change of any sort. Change is difficult and fraught with choices that can be confusing even baffling at times. Prayer from others always makes that process easier. So, for me, it follows that if death is not an end, but a continuation of the spiritual journey, all the change that is implied in that journey, is fodder for prayer.

The souls of our loved ones who have died, and eventually our own souls, will continue to make that journey toward the light, the Light that is Christ. We are, in fact, in a continuing community of all the living and the dead. Praying for, and asking the prayers of our beloved dead, is one of the most basic human and spiritual things to do.

So, let us pray for our dead and let us ask them for prayers as well. They are part of our community, grounded, as it were, in Christ. May the light of the prayers of the entire community lead you, and all your loved ones, to the Light.