Feast of All Souls Reflection
Preparing For Lord; Making Myself Ready
This is the time and now is the hour of great upheaval within the world, within the church, within communities as also within all Franciscan entities around the world.
Already, but not yet, like the Centurion I also need this time for readiness, to expand my awareness and to become fully available, “Lord, I am not ready that you should come under my roof.”
To find the face of the beloved in my face, embodied within me, ignites that fire of Love that is the birthing place of compassion which I now understand, must always begin with love and compassion for myself. I cannot give that which I do not have.
It is from the healing power of the beloved’s face on the cross that all my distress, fear, anger, and resentment is transformed, freeing me from the obsession with all the past injuries of my personal drama. Through this journey, I seek now not to burden but to build on new hope.
I know, trust and acknowledge, that I, and each one of us attuned to grace, are exactly where we need to be.
Each of us must play our own instrument in the orchestra being conducted by Christ. We each use our particular knowledge and skill, listening attentively to the other instruments, yet watching carefully at the direction of the Master, the conductor. The conductor is contained within the score and we can trust that this music that accompanies the dance, is coherent and also beautiful; “all will be well, all will be well.”
Wisdom is given when the world needs them most, at times of great change. As we wait, listen and watch we observe that synchronicity unfolding of the collective everywhere.
Decades of memories, neatly re-arranged. These were the choices we made and even the ones we refused to make. These are the choices that rearrange the sand at the edge of the sea. These are the choices that continue to bridge time and space into the new tomorrow.
The seeking to replace my first love that ensnared the butterfly of freedom. Yes, my own destination follows in the footprints of the mothers and the fathers that went before me. So also I will leave footprints for others to follow. I, like them, had become confused so that I thought that my choice and my will is the ultimate endeavour.
We forgot the will of the one who is the source and destination of all Love. In pride and self will we travelled a different route that other feet will follow.
On this day, like Jesus, we share in the tears of those who suffer the departing of a loved one, and like Him and thanks to Him, resounds the thanks to the author of Life who frees us from the selfishness of sin and destruction.
Today we visit at the graves of our loved ones, of those who have loved us and have done good to us. Today we are called to remember everyone, even those whom no one remembers. We remember the victims of war and of violence; so many “little ones” in the world crushed by greed, by hunger and poverty.
We remember the unnamed people who rest in common graves. We remember our brothers and sisters killed for being Christians; and those who sacrificed their lives to serve others. We especially entrust to the Lord those who have left us in the course of this year.
The tradition of the Church has always exhorted to pray for the deceased, in particular by offering for them the Eucharistic Celebration: that is the best spiritual help that we can give for their souls, particularly those most abandoned.
It is at the celebration of the mass that Christ brings together the past and the future into the eternal now of God’s presence. This is where the healing of those past events take place, so that a new destination becomes our reality.
The remembrance of the dead, the care for graves and prayers of repose are a witness of the confident hope, rooted in the certainty that death is not the final word on the human fate since man is destined to a life without limits, which has its roots and its fulfilment in God.
Pope Francis reminds us that it is with this faith in the supreme destiny of man that we turn now to Our Lady, who suffered under the cross the tragedy of the death of Christ and took part in the joy of His resurrection. May she, the Gate of Heaven, help us to always understand more the value of the prayers of repose for the dead. They are close to us! May she sustain us in our daily pilgrimage on this earth and help us to not lose sight of the final goal of life which is re-Union with the creator. And we with this hope that never disappoints, we move forward!
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