Sunday October 19, 2025, Commemoration of All Souls DAY

Wisdom 3: 1-9; Roman 8:14-23, Luke 7:11-17

Rev. Dr. Francis Perry Azah

Dearly beloved brothers and sisters, this is a day specially set apart that we may remember and pray for our dear ones who have gone to their eternal reward, and who are currently in a state or process of ongoing purification. In fact, the Church remembers the faithful departed not just on this day but throughout the entire month of November in a special way. As a part of our annual celebration of the Christian doctrine of the Communion of Saints, yesterday we celebrated All Saints Day, the thanksgiving feast of the Church Triumphant. Today is All Souls Day, our Thanksgiving Feast for the Church Suffering, and tomorrow should be our day of prayer and thanksgiving for All of Us, the Church Militant, thus completing the Communion of Saints.

We believe that God is all merciful and that Jesus’ passion, death, and resurrection saved us, but that does not excuse us from being purified. Jesus has saved us, but we still need to make amends for sin committed and we need to be purified. This expiation for sin must be made either in this life or the next. During life, we receive many opportunities to expiate sin through our sufferings, but after death any un-expiated sin needs to be purified. This is what purgatory is: purification for un-expiated sin, being healed of the negative effects of sin which do not leave us totally open to grace.

How long does one stay in purgatory? That depends on how one lived and how much repentance one did for sin before dying. We could imagine that a person who had lived a wild life and converted just before death would spend longer in purgatory than someone who had lived a life in union with God. We cannot compare time in this life with time in the next life. Our Lady at Fatima, when asked by the visionaries about a certain man, said he would be in purgatory until the end of the world. Time in purgatory does not pass like time here on earth. St. Robert Bellarmine wrote that for some people the time in purgatory will last entire centuries according to our time here on earth. (Schouppe Purgatory Explained page 68) Accounts of purgatory by saints and mystics, who were either transported to purgatory or visited by souls, tell us that there are various levels in purgatory ranging from lower levels which are closer to hell to upper levels which are closer to heaven.

God the Father has entrusted us into the custody of His Son. And the Son’s task is to work to save us that He would not lose anyone that the Father has given Him. Jesus Christ is our shepherd, and we are the sheep of His flock. God the Father has charged His Son with coming into our world and finding each one us, saving us, drawing us to Himself and through Him to the Father. Like a good shepherd, Jesus goes out in search of all of His lost sheep. Our whole life long, Jesus comes searching for you, for me, for every person, and He labors to try and save us. Jesus, however, is unlike any earthly shepherd because He willingly lays down His life for His sheep, that His body stretched out on the Cross, would be the bridge for us cross over from our dangerous life of sin, over the ravine of death, back to the Father’s homeland from whence we came.

We are meant to be moved by the scene of our Good Shepherd stretched out on the Cross, by the image of His dead body fixed there, “that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him may have eternal life…” If during this life we choose to unite ourselves with Christ in His death—if we are buried with Him by dying to sin—then we will also rise with Him from the dead to eternal life. Let us remember and pray for our beloved dead and for those who have no one to remember or pray for them. Let us keep our own death before our eyes, remembering how temporary this earthly life is, and let us turn our hearts back with renewed devotion to the One who made us and gave Himself up for us, that we might be united with His eternal love now and in the life to come.

For those who love and live for Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, death no longer has any power or any sting. We need not fear death because of the victory and resurrection of the Son of God. May the souls of the faithful departed through the mercy of God rest in peace, and may you and I live our lives in such a way—with Christ and for Christ—that we may join the faithful departed at the heavenly banquet. Today is much more about the mercy and love of God that we hope so much in. We believe and trust in his power to save our brothers and sisters who might need some kind of final purification. There is nothing prayer cannot do and that is why we pray for them. We too who are alive must constantly seek for this mercy of God for ourselves too and make ourselves available to participate in the feast of God regularly here on earth so that at the end of time we all can rejoice in the heavenly banquet. Eternal rest grant unto them O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May the Souls of the Faithful departed through the mercy of God rest in peace.