Wis 3:1-9 | Ps 23 | Rom 6:3-9 | Jn 6:37-40

Yesterday, All Saints Day, was a day of celebration. We celebrated the lives of the saints, who are in communion with one another and with God. “Surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses,” we looked to them as examples, and we asked for their intercession as agents of God’s love who are particularly close to Him.

Today, is a day of hope. If yesterday was confirmation of the belief that there is a party, today we acknowledge that we can attend that party. Every human person who has ever lived or will ever live receives an invitation to the party. Today, we pray for the souls of our beloved who have gone before us, that they may also experience the fullness of their humanity as members of the Communion of Saints.

Today is also a day to sit with the reality of that which we fear most: our own deaths. Humanity is inescapably linked to death. The wonder and joy of our lives are heightened by the transient nature of having a finite life. Everything we do will end. Every person we love will die. It imbues our existence with a preciousness that comes from scarcity.

Our readings give us a context that connects the past, present, and future and ties them together with hope. All of the readings are forward-looking. The book of Wisdom says, “Yet is their hope full of immortality.” The psalm says, “I shall dwell in the house of the Lord for years to come.” Paul tells us, “We were indeed buried with him through baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live in newness of life.” The gospel acclamation declares, and Jesus says in the gospel proper, “For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him may have eternal life.” These words span the entirety of the Bible, and they all point to one truth: death is not the end.

Being a Christian means loving one another, serving the poor, seeking justice, etc., yes. But today we say the quiet part out loud: we believe in an immortal soul. We believe we will be raised from the dead. We believe Jesus facilitates this. This is perhaps unnerving to say in the context of the modern world, but our hope is not in this life—it’s not about preserving this body to any end. This is what Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn’s characters in the 1992 film, “Death Becomes Her,” failed to realize. In a world obsessed with longevity, Christians see further. We have a long view of our time on this earth that puts that life into context as a brief, but still wondrous, painful and at the same time beautiful, experience of both: moments of inexpressible joy and despair that brings us to our knees.

This also means that those we love can be at peace, and our prayers can help speed this peace up. Wisdom sums this up in the first reading: “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.”

As we ask the saints to intercede for us, we can intercede for the souls of the departed. We are all connected, those who have fallen asleep in the Lord and those of us here in church today. We ask our beloved dead to pray for us, and we, in turn, pray for the repose of their souls, moving together in a cosmic dance, sharing the hope that we will ultimately be united in unending joy in an eternal dwelling place!

Eternal rest, grant unto them, O Lord. And let perpetual light shine upon them.

May they rest in peace. Amen.

May their souls, and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.