Homily for All Souls Day
Sunday, November 2, 2025
Sacred Heart, EGF
Saturday – 5 PM. Sunday – 8 AM, 10 AM.
Vigil for All Souls Day
As we enter into the month of November, the Church invites us to remember that we are passing through this life on our way to our final home.
November invites us to remember our death. It also invites us to remember eternal life.
November 1 – All Saints Day. We remember the holy men and women of every time and place. Saint known and unknown. Those who rejoice in the Kingdom of Heaven. Those whose example inspires us on to pursue a lives of holiness ourselves – to pursue a life of self-gift – a life given for God and given for others.
Today – All Souls Day. Or the Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed. Different from All Saints Day. It implies that not everyone who has gone before us is yet a saint.
At the end of our life, there are 4 last things.
Death. Judgement. Heaven. Hell.
Death. The separation of the soul from the body. “Indeed, for your faithful Lord, life is changed, not ended.”
Death puts and end to human life, as the time open to either accepting or rejecting the divine grace manifested in Christ.1
Life gives us the opportunity to accept or to reject the grace given to us by Christ.
We accept or reject is by using our free will.
We have to choose.
We choose every day.
We choose multiple times per day.
Sometimes we accept it. We choose to love.
Other times we reject it. We choose to sin.
After death, there are two judgements. My particular judgement, which happens immediately.
There are two options. The right or the left. With the sheep or with the goats.
Heaven or Hell.
If I rejected the divine grace given by Christ,
If I refuse to repent and to turn toward him,
I choose eternal separation from God.
Oftentimes I will visit someone who is dying. They desire the last rites. By that, they are thinking in particular of the anointing of the sick.
I always ask: “would you like me to hear your confession?”
Sometimes I will hear: “no thank you, I’m good. Just the anointing.”
That is chilling.
I offer extra prayers for that person, hoping that they are just in need of purification so that they can see the Heavenly Vision.
…
But if I accepted the divine grace given by Christ, I enter into the vision of God in Heaven.
Sometimes that happens immediately.
Oftentimes that happens after a time of purification.
Sins can be forgiven.
But sins have an effect on our soul.
As an example:
If regularly choose to gossip or to judge others, I become a gossip or a judgmental person.
There is a lack of charity in my soul. I can confess the sin, but the effect on my soul remains.
That needs to be purified before I am ready to enter the vision of God.
It needs to be purified so that I can see the vision of God.
That is purgatory.
All who die in God’s grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified,
are indeed assured of their eternal salvation;
but after death they undergo purification,
so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven.2
And the beauty of how God does this:
He does not do it through the action or merit of the one who needs to be purified.
The time for that person to do anything to help his situation has passed.
He does it through the prayers and charity of others.
The person who is gossipy is purified when they realize they are helpless to do anything about their own situation but they can see Heaven and greatly desire it. They experience an intense longing and also a sadness because they cannot achieve it.
Perhaps then they see someone praying for them, interceding and asking God to have mercy on this.
The person praying for them is someone that they didn’t like. It’s someone whom they gossiped about.
The person receives that act of love, and the charity of the other purifies their soul.
My soul is purified when it is touched by the charity of another.
That transforms my way of seeing. It transforms my heart.
Pope Benedict XVI:
I would go so far as to say that if there was no purgatory,
then we would have to invent it,
for who would dare say of himself that he was able to stand directly before God?
And yet we don’t want to be, to use an image from Scripture, ‘a pot that turned out wrong,’
that has to be thrown away;
we want to be able to be put right.
Purgatory basically means that God can put the pieces back together again.
That he can cleanse us in such a way that we are able to be with him and can stand there in the fullness of life.
Purgatory strips off from one person what is unbearable
and from another the inability to bear certain things,
so that in each of them a pure heart is revealed,
and we can see that we all belong together in one enormous symphony of being.
…
When someone dies, there is a natural tendency to remember them with fondness,
to speak well of everything they did.
If we loved them, we speak as if we are assured that they are in Heaven, and we will tell everyone that.
There is a great temptation for us to canonize them by our words.
But we must not forget to pray for them.
A eulogy speaks of what the person did.
A homily speaks of what God did…for the person, in the person, through the person.
When I die, please don’t assume that I am in Heaven.
(You say, “Don’t worry Father Matt, we won’t.”)
When I die, please don’t assume that I am in Heaven.
Rather, assist me with your prayers.
More than kind words, I will need prayers.
So do your loved ones.
So do those from our parish who have died and those whose names are inscribed in the book of remembrance.
They need our prayers.
An encouragement throughout the month of November:
Anytime you come into the church,
look at the list of names of those who have died in the last year,
or pick a name from the book of remembrance.
Pray for that person.
Your prayers have power because you are a member of the Body of Christ by your baptism.
When the Church prays, Christ prays.
When you pray, Christ prays.
And the prayer of Christ can be applied to that person, through you,
in order to complete their purification,
so that they can enter into the vision of God,
where they will surely intercede for you in the Communion of Saints.
And so, with that in mind, let us pray for them now and also during the sacrifice we are about to offer:
Eternal rest grant unto them O Lord,
R:\ and let perpetual light shine upon them.
May they rest in peace.
R:\ Amen
May the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God,
R:\ rest in peace. Amen.
Piercing the Heart 