Readings:
Isaiah 43 1-5, Do not be afraid for I am with you. I have called you by your name, you are mine. When you pass through deep waters, I will be with you. Your troubles will not overwhelm you. When you pass through fire, you will not be burned. The hard trials that come will not hurt you. For I am the lord your God, the holy God of Israel, who saves you.
Psalm 145, Lord, this is the people that longs to see your face.
1 John 3, 1-3, See what love the father has bestowed on us.
John 14, 27, 15, 9 & 11, (27)Peace is what I leave you; it is my own peace that I give you. (9)I love you just as the father loves me, remain in my love. (11)I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete.
Special readings in honor of All Saints.
Welcome to our celebration of our dear ones. Happy All Saints & All Souls.
Isaiah observations:
Who. This is second Isaiah, the best. Handel's Messiah uses a number of lines from Isaiah 2.
Subject. It is a time when many of the people of Judah are in exile in Babylon, crushed and without hope. The prophet is proclaiming that God would eventually set his people free and take them home to Jerusalem. (Note the Exodus theme, escape from bondage to find a new life, thus giving hope to those in Babylon.)
Our Subject. Do not be afraid. You will not be hurt.
Welcome in Everybody, say Georgie and Buddy.
All Souls Day observations–
Let me give you a bit of history and the thinking behind this All Souls' Day. Five observations: the theology, purgatory-limbo, a legend, pre-Christian practices, and today.
- The Theology. All Souls' Day is part of a package with All Saints. The idea is: on All Saints' Day we honor all those who are enjoying the beatific vision, that is, heaven, the saints. On All Souls' Day we honor those who have died but have not reached heaven because they had penance to do.
We are talking mortal & venial sin here. If the person died with mortal sin, they are you know where. Those with venial sins have to go through purification and purging, which brings us to All Souls' Day and purgatory.
Wake up Buddy, you are missing all the good stuff.
- Purgatory & limbo. People ended up in purgatory to purify themselves with suffering, before being allowed into heaven. Limbo was for whom? It was for people, especially children who died without being baptized. They remained there how long? Forever. Can you imagine a baby there or even in the old purgatory?
At least the Catholic Church recently acknowledged that the limbo idea was bogus. The pope said it does not exist and never did. Though many consider purgatory to be in the same class, it still exists. Want to know how we know? A previous pope was offering indulgences. The indulgence is for the soul in purgatory. It speeds up the process. There are partial & total indulgences. We can win them for these souls and get them out or we can win them for ourselves.
For instance, on the last feast of Peter & Paul Rome offered an indulgence if you visited a church named after one or both of these two, and you recited a prescribed menu of prayers.
Offertory with Mike & Judy & Mary.
- The legend. It happened around 1000 A.D. that a monk, St. Idolo, from the French monastery of Cluny was shipwrecked on a desolate island as he returned from a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, i.e., Israel. On the island he met a poor hermit. The hermit told him that among the rocks was a crevice from which came the anguished voices of the many suffering in purgatory. Likewise, listening carefully you could hear the devils cursing that living people were speeding up the sufferings of these souls by praying and doing penance for them.
Some time after this, i.e., 1000 A.D., the Cluny Monastery established an All Souls' Day. Ca. 1300 Rome followed suit.
Pretty good, Hugh and Sydney; Rosemary does to me the same thing.
- Pre-Christian times. There is evidence that at least in Mexico numerous tribes had a day or period when the departed ancestors were honored. The purpose was to honor them, remember their example, and to communicate with them. Today in Mexico & in Hispanic families the Day of the Dead is still celebrated. This custom has been celebrated for 3,000 years.
Guess who wears boots now.
5. Today. Limbo has been discarded by Rome and many scholars consider purgatory a dinosaur idea from antiquity. Consequently, All Souls' Day celebrates Samantha, my mom & dad, Rosemary's mom & dad, and all our loved ones pictured on the stage. All Saints' Day handles the canonized. Hell is also considered today a mental concept, not real.
So we say, What special blessing did you receive from one of these people pictured or whom you remember in your heart?
Do we have little mice crawling around around the floor of our community? Little mice with boots?
Do not be Afraid
In honor of All Saints and All Souls I chose two of my favorite scripture passages. Let me explain why.
I will always remember the summer of 1970. This was the summer just before I was ordained in 1971. I came down from Toronto to work as an apprentice chaplain at Boston City Hospital.
One afternoon I walked into the room of a guy who was dying. He was elderly and a typical Boston Irish Catholic. I asked him about his life, the positives and the negatives. I asked him how he felt about dying.
He said he was resigned to it even though he knew he was going to hell.
Cole, our semi-pro candle lighter, at his craft.
I was stunned. It seems he had married young and gotten divorced. Then he married again and lived happily with his second wife for decades before the lady died. He had never gotten an annulment.
What was the Catholic teaching of these days, even though Vatican II had already taken place? Yes, this was mortal sin and it would take him straight to hell forever. He was stoic about paying the price.
Well, you can guess what I did. I got another Jesuit, a priest, to visit him and send him home in peace.
Recognize anybody in this picture?
This, folks, exemplifies the spirituality of fear that many of us Catholics lived with all our lives. My dad had it. Not so much my mom. I had it, for sure. Like I’ve mentioned here frequently, it was fear that I was going to hell with my buddies that convinced me to join the Jesuits.
It was in Tanzania where I slowly and unconsciously learned the spirituality of unconditional acceptance and love. It was definitely reinforced in my work with psychology.
I would propose again that we have a God of unconditional love, not a God of punishment, especially eternal punishment.
Recognize anybody in this picture?
We used to have limbo for babies who die without being baptized. Even the Catholic Church admitted that this idea was made up by people. Purgatory? Protestants say this does not exist and is not in the Bible. Made up by our ancestors. So, what about hell? Could it, likewise, be an idea and not a reality? I, at least, think so.
The readings I’ve chosen for this celebration of All Saints and All Souls focus on Do not be afraid. They are some of my most favorite Bible verses. Maybe the people who wrote in the gospels about eternal fire were simply trying to get people to obey.
Lots of people have their favorite Bible verses. Some verses focus on eternal fire. Others talk of living without fear, certainly without fear of eternal punishment.
What a team!
What is your belief? A God of unconditional love or a God of eternal punishment?
