All Souls’ Day: Praying to God on Behalf of the Dead
A woman lost her only son to the cold hands of death and she was unconsolable. On the day of the funeral, she wouldn’t allow the body of her dead child to be buried; she held tightly to it. Her only condition for the funeral to go ahead was for her to be buried with her child. Some men were appointed to restrain her while the body of the dead child was yanked from her and taken for burial. The corpse was lowered into a six-feet grave. The men restraining the woman inside the house let down their guard, and the woman escaped running to the grave. Everyone by the grave was waiting for her to jump into the grave, but she jumped over the grave!
The grave is a bus stop, and the cemetery is a voyage terminal: travelers, departing and arriving, and those droping them off or picking them up, need those terminals to make traveling possible.
Each time we make our way to the bus stop or bus terminal or airport, we either anticipate a journey or we go to welcome travelers. Earthly journey divides our lives into two: the people we’re leaving behind and those we’re going to meet. We should not forget our fellow travelers on the bus, the train, or the plane; we share momentary relationships with those on the journey with us, relationships of wayferers, even if it is for a brief moment. Relationships of love or hatred, moments of joy or sadness, episodes riddle with emotions positive or negative.
Those we leave behind at the start of our journey are sad and full of prayerful hope that we arrive safely at our destination; but those waiting for us at our destination are full of expectant joy during our journey and full-blown happiness when we arrive.
Today, thanks to the means of communication or social media, the equivalent of Christians’ prayer, it’s possible to keep in touch with those we left behind and those we’re going to meet, even while discussing with friends and strangers as we travel to our destination (buses, trains, planes are WiFi enabled today!).
All Souls’ Day is talking to God on behalf of the dead day. The dead are the wayferers who have journey far from us, but near to God. Because the dead are witnesses of faith, prayer bridges the divide between the visible and invisible worlds, between them and us, and it opens by faith the veil that unbelievers think inexistent.
Our first reading concludes on a note of hope and radiant assurance:
“Those who trust in God shall understand truth, and the faithful shall abide with God in love.” This is the hope that does not disappoint; it shows that that the love that united us in this life is not erased by death—it is fulfilled beyond measure in God.
Fortunately for Christians, unlike the woman in our story, to stand at a grave is not to face the end; it is to stand at the threshold of transformation. For “life is changed, not ended,” as the Preface for the Dead reminds us.
So today’s commemoration is not only about memory—it is about communion. It is about the ongoing relationship between the living and the dead, all held together in Christ’s Paschal Mystery. Jesus says, “I shall raise them up on the last day” — The Promise of Resurrection is the focus of God’s love! Every funeral, every visit to a cemetery, every name whispered in prayer today finds its answer in these words:
“I shall raise them up on the last day.” This is not poetic imagery — it is the core of Christian faith. Death is not the end but a threshold. Beyond it lies the promise of resurrection, when every tear will be wiped away, and life will be restored in glory.
*Our God is not the God of endings but of new beginnings.* The grave may seem like silence, but to Christ it is only a doorway through which He calls each soul by name — as He called Lazarus, as He will one day call all the faithful departed out of death to eternal life.
“Whoever comes to me I will never drive away”
Jesus’ promise is absolute. It is not conditional on perfection, success, or purity of record. It is grounded solely in love — the love of the Good Shepherd who welcomes sinners, comforts the broken, and seeks the lost until He finds them.
On All Souls’ Day, we pray for those who are still being purified by love, those whose journey to the fullness of God’s presence is still unfolding, the souls in Purgatory. Our prayers become a bridge of mercy, helping them draw nearer to that eternal embrace. And we are reminded that no soul is beyond the reach of grace. Christ drives no one away. The gates of His heart are forever open.
May the souls of all the faithful departed rest in peace🙏🏿