Verbum Dei UK

These two important feasts coincide with a Celtic celebration that marks the end of the lighter, warmer days and the cold, dark days of winter (the origin of Halloween). The Celts thought that in this time the boundaries between the world of the spirits and the human world were somehow ‘thinner’, and our Christian celebrations give this a new meaning, inviting us to discover how close and present heaven is in our daily life.

The celebration of ‘All Saints Day’ which in England falls on Sunday is a joyful celebration of all those lives where God’s love has totally triumphed, whose lives are an encouragement and inspiration for us:

‘May all that splendid company

Whom Christ in glory came to meet,

Help us on our uneven road

Made smoother by their passing feet’.

(Hymn from Morning Prayer for All Saint’s day).

All Soul’s day is a chance to pray for all those who have passed away, in the knowledge and hope that God continues to work in their lives and draw them to himself.

Monday

Mt 5:1-12

‘Blessed are the poor for theirs in the Kingdom of heaven’

We probably don’t readily associate ourselves with the saints! It’s common to hear people say... I’m no saint! The celebration is not about a sense that these people are like another species... totally different from us, but rather that they give us a glimpse of what human life is meant to be full of God’s grace, and their experience is open to us. They weren’t born saints but journeyed towards a transformation in God’s love. And the beatitudes show the key of being receptive and humble depending on God’s love. The joy of the Kingdom of heaven is that it is open to all, the saint’s are ready to share all their experience of God with us, so the fruit of today is a profound hope, to not let pessimism be a barrier for God working in us.

Tuesday All Souls day

Lk 7:11-17

‘God has tried them and found them worthy to be with him’

The celebration of All Soul’s day is associated with praying for souls in purgatory. The belief in purgatory can sometimes seem a bit archaic but what it expresses is that the journey of experiencing God’s healing and forgiveness continues beyond this life.

These are realities that we can’t really describe or imagine, but the important message is that as part of the Body of Christ, one Church in this life and beyond our prayers for each other can be instruments of God’s grace in a way that stretches beyond time and space.

The gospel reading from Luke describes the miracle of a dead son being raised to life through Jesus having compassion of his grieving mother. This is a beautiful description of how God is touched by our grief at the loss of those we love, and that these human bonds are part of the horizon of heaven.

Take a moment today to pray for and give thanks to God for all the people who have been important in your life who have now passed away and reflect on whatever it is that you feel you can learn from their lives.

Wednesday

Philippians 2:12-18 ; Luke 14:25-33

‘Continue working out your salvation with fear and trembling’

Having heaven as our horizon doesn’t mean living with our head’s in the clouds. The saints were people whose faith had enormously practical implications for their lives and their decisions. In the Gospel Jesus talks about very common sense examples of people making calculations before they start a task making sure they can complete it. Much of our journey of learning to love is risk and mystery, because we can feel that we can’t love or forgive someone but God grace can give us a strength we didn’t know we had. Jesus’ encouragement to have ‘common sense’ is not contradictory, but a reminder that to allow God’s grace into our lives, doesn’t remove the need for us to think things through, to realise that we need to take steps of prayer, of being coherent, of letting go of what is an obstacle for us.

Thursday

Philippians 3:3-8 ; Luke 15:1-10

‘Everything seems to me as nothing compared with the knowledge of Christ Jesus.’

To live with the horizon of heaven means to have the taste that what God offers me, in terms of his love and friendship and living with his same love for others is a joy that is beyond anything that I can imagine. Often although we have tasted this joy, the routine and stress that often take over our lives can make us forget or doubt that life can taste any different. Faith is about living and searching for the ‘more’ that God is always offering us. The parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin speak to us of this generous and excessive mercy of God which is always searching for us, which is so much more than what we would logically expect. To pray we need to ask God for the gift of being surprised by him.

Friday

Lk 16: 1-8 Phil 3 : 17-4, 1

‘For us our homeland is in heaven’

Living with the horizon of heaven as we said before is not about living out of touch with reality, it’s about truly living in the whole reality, material and spiritual. Paul expresses his sorrow for those whose only aims are the immediate goals of material pleasure, because sooner or later disappointment is going to come their way. Heaven is not a consolation prize! But the longings of our heart for joy and love and satisfaction find their true answer in God, which doesn’t mean we’ll only be happy in the next life! We can enjoy God’s presence now with the promise of fullness to come.

The parable that Luke gives is rather a puzzling one, about the dishonest steward who reduces the debts of his master’s debtors in order to assure himself of friends. Some commentators explain that there was a practice of increasing the amount owed instead of adding interest which was not allowed, and so what the steward is doing is simply reducing the debt to what it should be. Jesus’ main point though seems to be like many parables, what we have is in administration, how do we make the best of it?

Often we focus on the circumstances of our life which are out of our control, and blame them for the difficulties we experience, so perhaps Jesus is encouraging us to focus on what is in our control, our administration; our time, our interior, our interactions with others, and find there glimpses of heaven.

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