On the first two days of November each year, the Church commemorates two linked feast days:\u00a0 All Saints, and All Souls.\u00a0 All Saints is easy to understand:\u00a0 we remember all those who have lived lives of heroic holiness, whether the Church has canonized them or not.\u00a0 But on All Souls, we remember all those who have died, not just the spiritual superstars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\tFrom the earliest days the church has prayed for the deceased. Their judgment is in the hands of God, and we trust in God\u2019s mercy, but we also believe the God cares about us and our concerns, so prayers for our deceased loved ones are appropriate. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\tThe feast day itself is rooted in the 2nd<\/sup> Century, and is reflected in the writings of Tertullian. St. Odilo of Cliny, in the year 988 established a memorial of all the faithful departed. Rome added the feast to the church\u2019s calendar in the 13th<\/sup> century. In many parts of the world the celebration of this feast day is marked with particular energy, like el Dia del los Muertos in Mexico. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \tWhere ever you are, it\u2019s appropriate to mark All Souls Day by praying for those who have gone before us in faith. It\u2019s also customary to visit the graves of our loved ones, and pray both for them, and for our own grieving and healing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \tThe feast of All Souls is a reminder to us of our mortality. Or, as one of my seminary professors once put it, \u201cIn the end, God\u2019s gonna kill us all.\u201d We are all finite, mortal creatures, who are loved by God who has endowed us with an immortal soul. Our ultimate destiny lies in God\u2019s hands, and even death does not separate us from his love. On the first two days of November each year, the Church commemorates two linked feast days:\u00a0 All Saints, and All Souls.\u00a0 All Saints is easy to understand:\u00a0 we remember all those who have lived lives of heroic holiness, whether the Church has canonized them or not.\u00a0 But on All Souls, we remember all those who have died, not just the spiritual superstars. From the earliest … Continue reading All Souls Day<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7],"tags":[21],"class_list":["post-428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-facts-of-faith","tag-facts-of-faith"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5FUlW-6U","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/corporalworks.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/corporalworks.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/corporalworks.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/corporalworks.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/corporalworks.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=428"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/corporalworks.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":429,"href":"http:\/\/corporalworks.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428\/revisions\/429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/corporalworks.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/corporalworks.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/corporalworks.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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