To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die.
--Thomas Campbell (1777-1844)
On All Souls Day we remember all the "faithful departed," who enjoy new life with God.
Sometimes it's hard for even devout Christians to believe in the afterlife. But Jesus promises his disciples eternal life many times, as in today's Gospel (Jn 6); he shows them that death has no power with the raising of the dead in his public ministry (not only Lazarus, but also the Widow of Nain's Son and Jairus's Daughter); and then he reveals it definitively at his own Resurrection, on Easter Sunday.
But you can also think of it this way: God loved us into being and loves us every day of our life. God enters into a loving relationship with us at our conception. So why would God end that relationship? It makes no sense. God would never end the loving relationship God has with you. Even death cannot end it.
Trust in Jesus's promises about what God has in store for believers: eternal life.
Today is the Commemoration
of the Faithful Departed!
In November we remember All Souls…
Image source: Marko Ivan Rupnik, Resurrection of Christ, detail (2006), mosaic, St. Stanislaus College Chapel, Ljubljana, Slovenia, https://www.imb.org/2017/04/12/journey-cross-artists-visualize-christs-passion-part-2/
Quotation source 1
Quotation source 2
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