November 3, 2022

Philippians 3:3-8

Luke 15:1-10

Yesterday we celebrated the feast of all souls but I had worked all night and couldn’t get to blog about the feast. As a child I remember the mass at the cemetery. It was the mass that the altar boys did not fight over to serve.

You know, I love this connection that Catholics have with the dead or as we used to say, the living dead. In the funeral liturgy we say that the bonds of love that knit us together in this life do not unravel with death. There is a bond of love between the church militant (us), the church suffering (those in purgatory) and the church triumphant (those in heaven).

This is where I wish I was more like mama. She is the most intuitive person I know. We never really met our grandmother but it sure felt as if she has always been part of the family. Mama would say “your grandmother visited me last night,” or mama would be getting ready to go somewhere and she would stop in her tracks and say “grandmother says not to go this way or not to go at all.” I thought mama was superstitious but now I think it a gift. There are people among us who are gifted, who are intuitive, in touch. They should be celebrated and not pushed away as “superstitious”.

Anyway what is the message of all souls…. Live! Live your life, find your mission, run your race on your own time, own pace, own lane. Trust me, there is plenty of time to be dead so don’t die before you die… LIVE.

I also wanna mention here one of the great regrets of the dying. They often say “I wish I lived a life true to myself and not the life others wished for me.” May you find the courage to do so. I know the sense of responsibility that you feel makes this statement difficult to live out. But at some point, if you can, please live your life not a life others wish for you.