Saints + Scripture: All the Faithful Departed

The Popish Plot
"All Souls' Day 2019"

'Tis the Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed (All Souls' Day): All Souls-link ūnus, All Souls-link duo, All Souls-link Array of Hope, Wikipedia-link All Souls, & Wikipedia-link Día de Muertos; Wikipedia-link Allhallowtide.

Commentary: Wayback Machine. Quoth the Holy Redeemer bulletin:

The Church has encouraged prayer for the dead from the earliest times as an act of Christian charity. The theological underpinning of the feast is the acknowledgment of human frailty. Since few people achieve perfection in this life but, rather, go to the grave still scarred with traces of sinfulness, some period of purification seems necessary before a soul comes face-to-face with God. The Council of Trent affirmed this purgatory state & insisted that the prayers of the living can spread the process of purification.

Quoth Minute Meditations from the Popes:

O Lord, on This All Souls' Day, I pray for all my departed family members, relatives, & benefactors. Eternal rest grant to them, & let perpetual light shine upon them.

Scripture of the Day
Mass Readings—Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed
The Book of Wisdom, chapter three, verses one thru nine;
Psalm Twenty-three (R/. one; or, four), verses one, two, & three(a); three(b) & four; five; & six;
The Letter to the Romans, chapter five, verses five thru eleven;
or, the Letter to the Romans, chapter six, verses three thru nine;
The Gospel according to John, chapter six, verses thirty-seven thru forty.

Commentary: Reflection by Bishop Robert Barron (Word on Fire):

Friends, in today’s Gospel Jesus talks about raising us on the last day. Our faith is that God will clothe the soul in a new and higher body, what Paul calls a "spiritual body." Here we might rely on the musings of John Polkinghorne, the Christian physicist, who appreciates the soul as the "form" or pattern of the person. God remembers this "form," and then reconstitutes it at a higher level during the resurrection, much as the pattern of an article or a photograph could be preserved in a computer’s memory and then reproduced in a new way.

Listen again to the words of Jesus in our Gospel today: "Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and I will not reject anyone who comes to me…." As you pray for the souls of your beloved dead, take comfort in those words. They will be raised again.

Video reflection by Jem Sullivan, Ph.D.: United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Scripture Study—Exodus 90: Day 91: Decision Dome, Day 41
The Book of Joshua, chapter twenty-four, verses one thru fifteen.

Commentary: The Tribes Renew the Covenant (Joshua, 24:1-15).

Papal Quote o' the Day

"We have inherited from the most ancient Christian communities the following certainty. There is an intense participation in life between us & the sisters & brothers who are in heavenly glory or who are still being purified after death."
—Pope St. John Paul II the Great (1920-2005, feast day: 22 October)

Saint Quote o' the Day

"The worst day in Purgatory will be better than the best day we ever spent on earth."
—St. Thomas Aquinas, Doctor of the Church (1225-1274, feast day: 28 January)

Chesterton Quote o' the Day

"Your soul, or anybody’s soul, matters so much more than what the world says about anybody."
—G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936)