Homily for All Souls Day
Nov. 2, 2021
Rom 5: 5-11
Christian Brothers, St. Joseph Residence, New
Rochelle, N.Y.
“Christ … died at the appointed time for the
ungodly” (Rom 5: 6).
That’s
St. Paul’s core message. He repeats it a
couple of lines later: “While we were
still sinners Christ died for us” (5:8).
We, who are sinners, who are ungodly, pray today for all of ungodly, sinful humanity that have gone before us, pray that all might benefit from Christ’s death, that everyone might “be saved thru him from the wrath” (5:9).
No
doubt we pray today for particular people:
our deceased parents and other family members, our confreres, others to
whom we were close, benefactors of our communities. If we desire that these precious people be
saved, how much more must God desire it!
Paul’s reference to “the appointed time” indicates as much. God the Father appointed a time, God planned
from the moment of the Fall, for Christ to redeem the world. “God so loved the world that he sent his only
Son…” (John 3:16). We just heard in
John’s Gospel that the Father wills that everyone who believes in Jesus “have
eternal life” (6:40).
Paul
speaks of hope (5:5). We have hope
because the Holy Spirit fills our hearts with faith in Christ, faith in the
power of his death. So we confidently
entrust the souls of all the deceased from the beginnings of the human race
till now, without discrimination as to their merits, entrust them to God’s
mercy given to us in Christ. May their
sins be pardoned and atoned for by the precious blood of our Savior. May our prayers now, in the divine wisdom,
have opened their hearts to accept the divine mercy so freely offered, so that
they may come to the everlasting feast of God’s holy ones, transformed from
ungodly into saints.
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