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FATHER PETER'S NOVEMBER LETTER
Dear People of St Peter's Parish,
November begins with the Feast of All Saints on the 1st and the Commemoration of All Souls on the 2nd. Ten or so days later Remembrance Sunday follows. (By the time you receive this, we shall have kept the first two of these.) So November is sometimes called 'the month of holy souls'.
At St Peter's we remember the dead, generally and by name, at every Mass. We pray for 'all who sleep in the peace of Christ, both those who have confessed the faith and those whose faith is known to God alone; for those who have died by violence; for all who have died suddenly and un prepared, and for those who have died (tragically) by their own hand'. We pray by name for any we know of whose anniversaries of death fall that week, or who have died recently, and for anyone departed for whom prayers have been asked for whatever reason. What we ask is that God in his goodness will work in all who have passed out of this world 'the good purpose of his perfect will'. We do this not because of any particular word of Jesus or other text from the Bible, but because our love for those who have died does not end with their death (and we presume that the same is true of their love for us). When they were alive, we believed that God wished us to bring to him our hopes and fears for them. Why should it cease to be so after their deaths?
Some people seem so fearful of falling into the trap of living in the past that they tell themselves, 'The past is as dead as the men (and women) who made it' - and do their best to break their ties with and those who were part of it. This is often achieved (in so far as it can be) at considerable cost to their happiness and peace of mind.
It is good that there should be a time each year when we are invited to remember 'those whom we love but see no longer' - when we know that we are not alone in doing so. It helps us to see our own lives more clearly in relation to theirs and to be grateful for things we have been given through them; it helps us to forgive - and to accept forgiveness - for what may need to be forgiven and healed; it helps to purify the love we feel for them; and it helps us to look forward to 'seeing' them again in ways beyond our telling when we shall be changed ... and so will they.
Memory, self-awareness and imagination are what set human beings apart, aspects of the image of God in which he created us. Far from cocooning us in the past, remembering the dead as we do in the 'month of holy souls' helps us to take the next step - to move forward into the future with hope. It does not diminish our humanity but affirms it.
Wishing you every blessing
Fr Peter