Mass of All Souls

Mass Celebrated by Archbishop Denis Hart
at St Patrick's Cathedral, Melbourne,
on Sunday, 2nd November, 2003, at 11.00am

Introduction

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Today we remember in prayer our brothers and sisters who have died, knowing that this is the greatest and last charity which we can perform for them.

We know that for each of us immediately after death comes judgement when we will go to heaven if we are perfect, to purgatory if some preparation is needed, or to hell if we have freely chosen to remain in seriously sinful life and to reject God.

By the power of our prayers those who have died can be brought more quickly to be with God. Let us pray this Mass fervently for them.

As we call to mind our sins, let us ask the Lord for pardon, light and strength that our journey on earth may be a walking in the way of Christ.

Homily

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

In the ninth book of his Confessions Saint Augustine shares a conversation he had with his mother not long before her death. “We stood leaning against a window that looked out on a garden within the house where we were staying at Ostia on the Tiber. There far from the crowds we were recovering our strength in preparation for our voyage overseas. We were alone conferring very intimately. Forgetting what lay in the past and stretching out to what was ahead we inquired between ourselves what eternal life would be like.”

In his own book, The City of God, Saint Augustine said, “There we shall rest and see, we shall see and love, we shall love and we shall praise. Behold what shall be in the end without end.”

We remember that the whole purpose of our life, which begins at our birth and baptism, is one day to be with God in heaven. To do that we have to die with Christ in order to rise with him. As Saint Paul said, “We must be away from the body and at home with the Lord.” (2 Cor. 5.8) In that departure, which is death, the soul is separated from the body and the body and soul will be reunited on the day of the resurrection of the dead. Death is the end of our earthly life. It is the consequence of sin and it is transformed by Christ.

The whole purpose of Christian life is to live the full, open, joyful love of the Commandments. To fully and actively live the positive side of those things which are forbidden, to be one with Christ in prayer and desire, in mind and heart, in action and restraint.

Every one of us was born in original sin and with a predisposition to evil. All of us have sinned, some seriously. If we die in unrepentant mortal sin, then we have chosen to separate ourselves from God forever and we will go to hell. The goal of every Christian is to live with Christ and to die so as to be with him.

Today has a two-fold challenge for us. To remember as the litany prays, that we may be delivered “from a sudden and unprovided death”. This means that the effort to live the life of grace, nourished by regular Confession and Communion, to follow the Commandments of the Lord as the recipe for eternal life is the way in which we take hold of the risen life which Jesus offers us and which will assure us of coming to him when we die.

Because God is all perfect, nothing blemished or imperfect can come to be with him. This is why many of us when we die, though fundamentally open to God, need to be prepared. In purgatory we endure the pain of separation from God and of the comparison of our sinful nature with God’s absolute perfection, in which he wants us to share. In our time of purgatory we depend upon the prayers and sacrifices of others on earth. Today is a moment when we remember our loved ones and all who need our prayers and we pray and make sacrifices for them.

Just before Holy Communion at Mass we pray, “we wait in joyful hope for the coming of our Saviour, Jesus Christ,” and Saint Paul later on adds, “He will transfigure these wretched bodies of ours into copies of his own glorious body.” In charity we pray for those who have died. In hope and vigilance we resolve that our lives will be conformed to Christ and we are one with the perfect prayer of Christ in the Mass as we wait in joyful hope for the coming of our Saviour. Thomas á Kempis said, “Every action of yours, every thought, should be those of one who expects to die before the day is out. Death would have no great terrors for you if you had a quiet conscience … then why not keep clear of sin instead of running away from death? If you aren’t fit to face death today, it is very unlikely you will be tomorrow.” (The Imitation of Christ, 1,23,1.)

This contrasts with the saintly view of Saint Francis Assisi in his Canticle of the Creatures. “Praise to you my Lord for our sister bodily death, from whom no living man can escape. Woe on those who will die in mortal sin! Blessed are they who will be found in your most holy will, for the second death will not harm them.”

+ Denis J. Hart,
Archbishop of Melbourne.