Thank God! It is dark at 6:30 AM and it will be nice to wake up to light and begin the 6:15 AM Mass at dawn.
But tomorrow will be dark in the morning and perhaps that’s appropriate for the celebration of All
Souls Day. Our school children will attend the 8:15 AM Mass to hear the names of all those who have been buried from our Church during this year.
For me, I can think of dying and death with more emotion than when I was young.Unlike the smiling young faces who will pray for all the deceased, I can’t be too far away from my own expiration date.
“Children, where do we go after we die? Up to heaven or that other place? What about the sins that we still have on our souls at the moment of death? The Church teaches that it a just and holy thing to pray for the dead. So, we do. Just as I ask you to pray that God bless me and care for me in this life, when we pray for someone who died, we do the same thing. But, we pray that their sins be forgiven and that they enter into eternal life, that place of warmth and light.
At the 8:15 AM Mass, the sun will have arisen and the new light will remind us of eternal life.
Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them!”
In that new and eternal Jerusalem, there will be no need for a sun to give us light. God Himself is its light.