“Life is changed, not ended”: Remembering our faithful departed
November comes between the rejoicing of the harvest and the short, dark days of winter. It is a time when people focus on death and the dead. Have just celebrated the feasts of All Saints and All Souls, we profess our solidarity with the saints and ancestors; with those on whose shoulders we stand. All of this helps us grow in readiness to acknowledge, with St. Francis, that death is a sister to us, another of God’s servant: We praise You, Lord, for Sister Death, from whom no-one living can escape…. Blessed are those that she finds doing Your Will. No second death can do them harm. - St. Francis of Assisi, “Canticle of the Sun” Today, we went to a nearby cemetery so as to apply the November indulgence. There is something very peaceful about walking around a graveyard and reflecting upon the tombstones and praying for those many people who walked the earth just as we do now. It becomes the mirror where we ponder our own mortality and recall that ‘we are dust and to dust we will ...