William Faulkner famously wrote: “The past is not dead. It is not even past.” That helps to explain today’s feast of All Souls. We all have loved ones who are not longer alive with us in this world. We miss them and we grieve the loss. However, as this feast reminds us they have not gone from us, they have simply gone ahead of us. Since God lives in the eternal now, the limits imposed on us by time are not part of the divine story. Everyone is alive in God. St. Paul says, If, then, we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him. Death is not the enemy to be feared at all costs. Death is rather, in Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’s phrase “the final stage of growth.” Let us on this day feel the connection we still possess with all the faithful departed as part of the communion of saints.
