As the liturgical year draws to a close and we enter these twin feasts of All Saints and All Souls, I tend to think on my loved ones who have gone before me. I miss them, wish I could still share my lives with them, but I also celebrate, knowing they have found their place in paradise. However, this year, as I turned my gaze towards the feast of All Souls, I found myself thinking about my best friend.
A few weeks ago, I was in the midst of writing too many college letters of recommendation while simultaneously finishing quarter grades when my phone buzzed. It was my best friend, Lauren, telling me that her uncle and godfather had unexpectedly passed away. My first instinct was to immediately pick up the phone and call her. I had quite literally hundreds of things to do, but nothing was more important in that moment than being present to my friend. We spoke about her uncle, her memories of him, her family’s reactions, the plans for his services, and her feelings, which constituted a peculiar blend of sorrow and confusion and emptiness. When we had been on the phone for about an hour, she told me she was going to eat dinner with her husband, but that she was grateful for the call and would keep me updated.
After we hung up, I thought back to all the times I had leaned on Lauren, specifically when my loved ones died, and I was grieving. She brought my family a cinnamon loaf when my dad died. She sat with me when I missed him, or my grandma, or my grandpa. And when she experienced a loss? She called me, and I got to be present to her.
This anecdote, and more broadly, our friendship, encapsulates what the Feast of All Souls means for us as believers. This Feast invites us to pray for those who have died as well as those who mourn them. We pray for the deceased souls, those we have known and loved, those with whom we had difficult relationships, those with whom we did not have enough time. We also pray with and for those who have lost someone, those who are grieving, those who are feeling lost or abandoned without their loved one. While the Feast of All Saints commemorates the joy of the Communion of Saints in heaven, the Feast of All Souls reminds us of the journey it takes to get there, of the broken hearts along the way. It is a Feast that demands patience of us, both now as we build lives without our absent loved ones and later as we await paradise. May God grant us the grace to be good mourners, to be present to our friends who mourn, and to pray for the repose of the souls who have gone before us.
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