All Souls Day
Reflection
Today we pause to remember our beloved dead and to celebrate their memories. It is important for us to consciously remember our loved ones who have died. It brings their lives back into the context of our daily experience and reminds us of the depth of each relationship. Remembering them is part of gratitude for all life held in being by the Source of all life. All Souls’ Day invites us to bear witness to the communion of all life in which we share. In the mystery of Divine Presence, our loved ones are connected to us; they are united with us in this Divine Presence at all times.
Prayer
May we be true to the memories of all those who have touched our lives with their goodness and love. May their presence live on in us.
Action
Gather your memories of your loved ones.
In your own living, witness to their eternal, loving presence in your life.
uggested Reading
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live,”
John 11:25
Today is a day of memory that takes us back to our roots. It is also a day of hope. It reminds us of what we can expect: the hope of encountering the love of God.
Pope Francis
Whether we know it or not, we transmit the presence of everyone we have ever known, as though by being in each other’s presence we exchange our cells, pass on some of our life force, and then we go on carrying that other person in our body, not unlike springtime when certain plants in fields we walk through attach their seeds in the form of small burrs to our socks, our pants, our caps, as if to say, “Go on, take us with you, carry us to root in another place.” This is how we survive long after we are dead. This is why it is so important who we become, because we pass it on.
Natalie Goldberg
No one’s death comes to pass without making some impression, and those close to the deceased inherit part of the liberated soul and become richer in their humanness.
Hermann Broch
Death leaves a heartache no one can heal. Love leaves a memory no one can steal.
From a headstone in Ireland
Death is not extinguishing the light; it is putting out the lamp because dawn has come.
Rabindranath Tagore
Unable are the loved to die. For love is immortality.
Emily Dickinson
To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die.
Thomas Campbell
Love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.
Kahlil Gibran
Grief is the price we pay for love.
Queen Elizabeth !!
I still miss those I loved who are no longer with me but I find I am grateful for having loved them. The gratitude has finally conquered the loss.
Rita Mae Brown