Isaiah 25:6-9 / Romans 5:5-11 / Matthew 11:25-30 (Year A)
As we gather on this special day of prayer for our departed loved ones and for all the faithful departed, our thoughts go back to the past.
It is in this past that memories of our departed loved ones are recalled, the moments that we shared with them, and the mark that they left in our lives.
They have departed and are no more with us now. But we remember them in our hearts and in our prayer.
And our faith tells us that they exist in another spiritual realm, and that if they are in Purgatory and undergoing purification, we are able to help them by our prayers, and that is why we offer Masses for the departed.
We commend them into the hands of God who will lead them to His holy mountain where He will remove the mourning veil and the shroud of death and wipe away the tears from every cheek, as we heard in the 1st reading.
Yes, that is our God in whom we hope for salvation. And that is also the God that the departed hope for salvation.
And it is a living hope for us and for the departed, because the 2nd reading tells us that Christ died for us while we were still sinners, and that is the proof that God loves us.
So whether in life or in death, our hope is in the God of love who saves us from eternal death.
And Jesus tells us in the gospel to come to Him, we who labour and are overburdened.
One of our greatest burdens is the question of death and the afterlife, and the question is for our departed loved ones and also for ourselves.
But in Jesus, the question of life and death is in His hands, and we must put our faith and hope in Jesus.
It is with faith and hope that we pray for our departed loved ones, the faithful departed, as well as the departed forgotten ones.
In the mystery of life and death, we commend the departed into the hands of God as we remember them in prayer.
And the God of love, who is the God of the living, will grant eternal rest to those who put their hope and trust in Him.