“For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who seeks the Son and believes in him may have eternal life, and I shall raise him on the last day” (Jn 6:40).
This is our hope and what we believe, that we who encounter Jesus, believe in, know him, and follow him shall have eternal life. God’s will, what he created all of us for, is to be in communion with him and one another in this life and the next. A word of assurance that I often lean on is from the book of Wisdom from our first reading today, “The souls of the just are in the hand of God, and no torment shall touch them. They seemed, in the view of the foolish, to be dead; and their passing away was thought an affliction and their going forth from us utter destruction. But they are in peace” (Wisdom 3:1-3).
The miracle of Jesus raising the daughter of the Roman official, Jairus, embodies these verses from Wisdom. As Jesus entered the home of the official many were “making a commotion” and Jesus dismissed them stating: “Go away! the girl is not dead but sleeping.” He was ridiculed by the crowd but paid them no heed. He went to the girl, took her hand, “and the little girl arose” (cf. Mt 9:18-26).
Experiences like the raising of Jairus’ daughter, as well as the son of the widow from Nain, and Lazarus, were not only seeds of hope planting the promise of his resurrection to come but a foretaste of the raising of humanity on the last day. “The father’s will is the salvation of all of humanity through Jesus” (Martin and Wright, 125). The disciples witnessed Jesus’ actions and words, and not only kept these experiences in their hearts but shared them.
Through the Gospels, we are invited to experience the encounters of Jesus with others again and again. We also experience Jesus each time we spend breathing in silence, meditating and praying with his word, participating in the sacraments, communal worship, and loving one another through concrete actions of sacrifice and service. In each of these moments, we are conformed and shaped into who we have been created and called by God to be in this life, so better to prepare for the next.
This All Souls Day we celebrate the gift that Jesus was victorious over sin and death, not only for himself but for all. Unlike those he raised from the dead and died again: “We know that Christ, raised from the dead, dies no more; death no longer has power over him” (Romans 6:9). The difference between All Saints yesterday, and the commemoration of all souls today, is that we pray for those who have died and are still in need of the purifying fire of God’s love. Just as “gold in the furnace” (Wisdom 3:6) is purified, so God purifies those in purgatory. Let us pray for them today that they may be freed from any sin so they may also join the communion of Saints!
“Merciful Father, hear our prayers and console us. As we renew our faith in your Son, whom you raised from the dead, strengthen our hope that all our departed brothers and sisters will share in his resurrection, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, God, forever and ever” (Prayer for All Souls, from the Liturgy of the Hours).
Photo: For All Saints, we ask the saints to pray for us, for all souls, we pray for them that they may be saints.
Martin, Francis and William M. Wright, IV. The Gospel of John. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2015.
