Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed
by Fr. David M. Knight
Saturday, November 2, 2024
Thirtieth Week of the Year
Use any readings from no. 668 or from the Lectionary for Ritual Masses (vol. IV), the Masses for the Dead, nos. 1011-1016.
Isaiah 25:6-9: Christian life is unintelligible except as a waiting. In the Rite of Communion we say: “In the present age.... we wait for the blessed hope and the manifestation of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.” We know that “here we have no lasting city, but we are looking for the city that is to come.” For us, life really begins when we die and enter into the “wedding banquet of the Lamb” in the “New Jerusalem.” Isaiah describes it:
On this mountain the LORD of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines.... And he will destroy on this mountain the shroud that is cast over all peoples.... He will swallow up death forever. Then the Lord GOD will wipe away the tears from all faces, and the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth. The LORD has spoken.
Our life should be characterized by expectation: we have a future.
We have waited for him, so that he might save us. This is the LORD for whom we have waited; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation. (Titus 2:12-13; Hebrews 13:14.)
John 6:51-58 tells us what the “rich food” of the wedding banquet will be. It is Jesus himself, the “living bread come down from heaven.” When we pray in the Our Father, “Give us this day our [future] bread,” this is the Bread we are talking about. It is the Bread of Life. Jesus says, “Anyone who feeds on me will have life because of me. Anyone who feeds on this bread shall live forever.” Why? Because this Bread is Jesus, and Jesus is Life.
He was in the beginning with God.
All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.
Possessing him in union with a reconciled, united humanity is our one desire: “Give us... and forgive us....”
Since Jesus is our true life, Paul tells us in Romans 14:7-12:
We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves. If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.
We live now by the divine life of God in us, Christ’s life. At death nothing changes except we enter completely into the enjoyment of what is already ours.
While we are in our bodies on earth, interacting with our environment, we are subject to temptations, pain and labors. On earth we live in the future by stewardship: “managing” all that is entrusted to us in whatever way best contributes to establishing the reign of God. Then we see death as “entering into our glory,” being “glorified.” (John 12:23; Romans 8:17.)
Initiative: Keep your feet on the ground while above it; but your eyes on heaven.
Reflections brought to you by the Immersed in Christ Ministry
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