We have some really fresh mornings as we come to the end of October. The fall is easily one of my favorite times of the year. The month of November has some of the most meaningful celebrations that we observe. We begin the month with the Feasts of All Saints and All Souls, we have the highly patriotic day of Veterans Day on November 11, and, of course, one of the highlights of the entire calendar is the national holiday of Thanksgiving Day on Thursday, November 24.

Tuesday of this week is November 1, All Saints Day, and for us Catholics, it is a holy day of obligation.  My memories of ‘La Toussaints’ goes back to my childhood when we would go to the cemetery in Arnaudville for the blessing of the graves on All Saints Day. Those memories are wonderful, sad, faith filled and sustaining.  Our Mass schedule here at St. Elizabeth Seton Church is as follows: Tuesday, November 1, Masses will be at 7:15am; 12:05pm and 5:30pm.  I encourage you to do your very best to celebrate the Lord’s Supper and the Death and Resurrection of the Lord Jesus on All Saints Day. At every celebration of the Mass we are honored to remember the Paschal Mystery of the Savior and the Redeemer, who died, was buried and rose from the dead that very first glorious Easter Sunday.

At the Masses on All Saints we will remember all our family members, all our relatives and all our friends and all our loved ones who have died.  We will remember in a special way those members of our Community who have died since last All Saints Day. One of the most profound blessings of our Christian and Catholic Faith is the belief in Jesus Christ risen from the dead. The hope that is ours through our personal faith in Jesus is that we too will overcome death and share in the joy and in the life of the Lord’s Resurrection. In the Savior and in the Shepherd, we have remarkable comfort and amazing hope. The words of St. Paul are so freeing: “For if we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord, so then, whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s.” (Romans 14:8)  My faith in Jesus Christ was nurtured as a child and how often did I hear from the adults within our family, especially from my mother, ‘On les met dans les mains du bon Dieu.’ We place the dead in the hands of the Lord. In the living of our lives here on earth in our prayers and surely in the death of our loved ones, we place them in the hands of the living God.  The Lord is our Creator, our life sustainer, our Savior, our Good Shepherd, our Teacher, our Judge and above all, the Lord is our heavenly Father to whom one day we all shall return in the mystery of our human death.  The ending of the Prayer of St. Francis captures the core of our faith in the risen Savior, “it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.”

One of, if not the greatest challenge we face in life is our own mortality and the mortality of our loved ones and the passing away of the ones who love us and whom we love. The verse in Ecclesiastes 3 applies to everyone: “There is a time to be born; there is a time to die.” As mortals, we know that our lives have a beginning and an end. Through Jesus, we have a hope that our human lives continue after death in the presence of the heavenly Father in his eternal kingdom of peace, rest and fullness of life. May the Feasts of All Saints and All Souls be a time of renewed hope for all of us who have grieved and who will grieve the death of loved ones.  The Lord has promised to wipe away from our faces all the tears that we shed and give our beloved dead eternal life and everlasting rest. May our dead rest in the peace of the Father and share in the wonder of the glory of his beatific presence. May our faith in the communion of saints sustain us in our times of loss and of grief and give us the courage and the strength we need in living our lives and helping us to honor the memory of our beloved dead by our lives of service, faith, generosity and devotion.

May the words of our Psalm today be true for us: “Let all your works give you thanks, O Lord, and let your faithful ones bless you. The Lord is faithful in all his words and holy in all his works.” (Psalm 145: 10-13) My prayers, love, best wishes and gratitude to all of you and to your loved ones, for all you do for the Lord and for the good of St. Elizabeth Seton Church Parish.

Shalom,
Fr. Gary

Homework for the week of October 30 – November 5j
John 6:37-40