This morning, names, persons, faces, words, and actions flood our minds as we gather to commend to the Lord our loved ones who have gone before us in the past year. Today our minds are filled with memories of days past in their company, of places animated by their wonderful and loving presence. Today it is love—a trifold love— that draws us to the Lord’s house!
The first is a love that moves us to offer tremendous thanks to God for the many blessings, great and small, bestowed on our beloved deceased. We benefitted from those blessings; our lives were shaped by them. Today we thank God that they were so much a part of our life’s journey and we theirs.
The second is a love that moves us to offer our prayers for them. Pope Benedict reminded us that “those who precede us to the other shore, never stop needing our love. Our Masses and prayers are the greatest means of continuing our love—a love that is stronger than death, a love that reaches beyond the barrier of death.
Uniting ourselves to the holy sacrifice of the Mass for our loved ones, we pray that all stain of sin be washed away, that all wounds be healed, and that they be purified of all that is not Christ. We lend our prayers to the perfecting, to the final work of God’s grace to hasten their welcome into heaven’s joy.
Finally, our love is for the Lord Jesus, who illumines the darkness of death with the bright promise of immortality. He assures us that death is not the last word. We grieve still, to be sure, for grief is the price we pay for love. We grieve because we have loved and been loved.
It is trust in the Lord’s promises that allows us to repeat with the author of the Letter to the Hebrews: “We are not among those who draw back and perish, but among those who have faith and will possess life.” (10:39)
Years ago, my cousins had this verse printed on my uncle’s memorial card, they express what our loved ones might have us remember today and always:
