All Souls (November 2)

 

All Souls (November 2)

Readings: Wisdom 3:1-9  Romans 6:3-9  John 6:37-40

            The readings for the feast of All Souls proclaim the Christian belief in God’s victory over the powers of sin and death through the resurrection of Christ and his will to save all humans who are called to turn from sin and embrace a life of self-sacrificing love. In the Roman Catholic tradition we pray for the souls of the faithful departed who at the moment of death may still need to be purified from the power of sin.  The Church provides many options for the readings at the Masses for All Souls, but all of them affirm these Christian beliefs.

            The reading from the Book of Wisdom was originally written in Greek for Jews about a century before Christ who were living in a worldly Greek culture that tempted them to give up their faith in immortality and obeying the Torah’s commands and adopt a worldly pleasure-seeking way of life.  In chapter 2, “the wicked” argue, “Brief and troublesome is our lifetime” (2:1-5) and then pursue lives of wanton pleasure, making their own strength the norm of justice (2:6-11). Finally, they decide to persecute and kill “the just one” who “reproaches us for transgressions of the law” (2:12-19).  They reason: “Let us condemn him to a shameful death/ for according to his own words, God will take care of him.”  But the author of Wisdom believes that these worldly men have erred because they did not know “the hidden counsels of God” who rewards the innocent soul of the just (2:21-22) and who formed man “to be imperishable; the image of his own nature he made him” (2:23-24).     

            Our reading proclaims the final fate of the just.  Contrary to the foolish thoughts of the wicked who presume that the just are dead, afflicted and destroyed, they are “in peace” with God.  Although in the sight of others they seemed punished, the just, after being chastised and tried, have been found worthy of God and shall be greatly blessed.  “As gold in the furnace, he (God) proved them/ and as sacrificial offerings he took them to himself.”  Their final eschatological destiny will be to “judge nations and rule over peoples” with the Lord as “their King forever.”  The just will “understand truth,” abide with God “in love: because grace and mercy are with his holy ones,/ and his care is with his elect.”

            In the second reading from Romans 6, Paul proclaims the effect of resurrection faith on the present and future life of the Christian.  Paul’s diatribe in this section (6:1-9) raises and answers a possible objection to the gospel he preaches; for both Jews and Gentiles salvation from sin’s power is through faith in the crucified and risen Christ rather than through observance of the Torah.  The question is: does Paul’s gospel, which insists that both Jews and Gentiles were under sin’s dominion when Christ died for them, encourage continuation in sin “that grace may abound” (6:1)?  Paul’s answer is a definitive no, which he substantiates by reflecting on the effect of the baptism that Christian converts received.  Paul interprets Christian baptism as an entrance into Christ’s death and resurrection, in which the old self is crucified; the Christian is to be no longer enslaved to sin but to live in a newness of life.  Christian baptism involves an ethical conversion, a “death” to sin and a “resurrection” into a life of being “alive for God in Christ Jesus.” Freed from the power of death, the baptized Christian is filled with hope.  “If, then, we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him.  We know that Christ, raised from the dead, dies no more; death no longer has power over him.”

            In the Gospel from John’s bread-of-life discourse Jesus solemnly announces to those who have seen his miracle of the loaves and fishes that all who believe in him as “the bread of God” come down to give life to the world shall have eternal life and be raised up on the last day.  Jesus proclaims that he has come down from heaven, not to do his own will, but that of the Father who sent him.  Then in two parallel statements Jesus affirms God’s will is to save all humanity.  First, he announces that it is the will of the one who sent me “that I should not lose anything of what he gave me, but raise it up on the last day.”  Secondly, he proclaims that the Father’s will is “that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him may have eternal life, and I shall raise him on the last day.”  On the Feast of All Souls we celebrate this saving mystery in behalf of all our beloved departed. 

            We should also never lose sight of the fact that behind John’s image of Jesus as “the bread of life” stands his passion, death and resurrection.  The Jesus who is the bread that gives life to the world is the self-sacrificing Jesus who has come to lay down his life for his friends.  He is also the Jesus who teaches his disciples at the Last Supper to imitate him.

                        I give you a new commandment: love one another;

                        just as I have loved you, you must love one another.

                        By this love you have for one another,

                        everyone will know you are my disciples.  (John 13:34-35)