During the month of November, we remember those who have died. In particular, on Friday, November 1st, we celebrate All Saints Day; then the next day is All Souls Day. One way to distinguish between these two days would be to say that on All Saints Day we remember and pray with all those who have “made it to heaven”; and on All Souls we pray for all the dead, including those who may be journeying or lost along the way.
The word “saint” basically means “holy”. On All Saints Day, then, we can think about all the holy people who have gone before us, who are in the land of the Creator, and we ask for their prayers.
Those who are in heaven, then, are the holy people? What about those of us who are not particularly holy or saintly? Well, we too have a solid hope of being among the saints in heaven. For one thing, in this present life on Earth, we can do what we can, and pray, so that we might move toward some measure of holiness in our lives. At the same time, though, we don’t have to achieve some kind of level of perfection in this life in order to be accepted by God in the next. Rather, the way that I understand it is that God loves us, with that love including mercy and forgiveness; and our job is to accept and receive that love, both in this life and after death. While in this world, we work on our goodness, even our holiness, in response to God’s love and out of love for others; and not because we’re trying to earn our way into heaven. And being a Saint in that Giizhigoong after death would be the result of a final purification, whereby we are made holy and made, we might say, fully ourselves.
May you have a blessed Tasewang / All Saints / All Souls, and month of November, in communion with those who have gone on before us.
Fr. Paul Robson SJ