All Souls’ Day (2025)

All Souls’ Day
Wisdom 3:1-9
Psalm 25:6, 7b, 17-18, 20-21 (1) or (3a)
Romans 8:14-23
Luke 7:11-17
November 2, 2025

Please note that for All Souls’ Day there are a number of options for readings.  Therefore, you may have heard different readings at the Mass you attended.

During much of the Old Testament period, many cultures did not have a sense of life after death.  Your “legacy” was your descendants.  For the Jews themselves, much of the Old Testament did not provide explicit teaching on resurrection and eternal life.

The Book of Wisdom was written shortly before the birth of Christ.  In this time period, religious writings did begin to speak about eternal life.

Today’s reading speaks of what happens to a person after death.  “The souls of the just are in the hand of God.”  Those who follow the Lord will spend eternity with the Lord in Heaven.  “No torment shall touch them.”  Those who follow Christ will not spend eternity in the torment of Hell.

Without this understanding, one’s “passing away was thought an affliction…utter destruction.”  If there is no life after death, when one dies one ceases to exist.  It would be utter destruction.

That is not the way it is for those of us who follow Jesus as the way and the truth and the life (John 14:6) can have hope for immortality.  If we give our lives to our Lord, we “shall be greatly blessed.”  We may sin but God will make us worthy.

Our sins are forgiven when we ask for forgiveness.  For mortal sins, this happens in the Sacrament of Reconciliation.  Yet, those sins have left their mark on us.  To enter Heaven, to stand before God one must be pure. 

Here the passage from Wisdom speaks of “gold in the furnace.”  Gold is put into the furnace to refine it, removing impurities.  In the same way, God blesses us by providing for us the cleansing fire of Purgatory.

Purgatory is a gift.  We need it.  Remember what I said before that even when God forgives our sins, they still leave a mark on us.  To enter Heaven, we Purgatory to remove that mark.  Then, the faithful shall abide with the Lord in in love.

Our Lord is our creator.  In Baptism, we are “children of God” and, as Paul writes, “if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if only we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.”  In faith, with hope of eternal life, we accept our sufferings in this world and the cleansing of Purgatory so that we can spend eternity in Heaven with God.

Death is not the final end.  Jesus shows us that God has power even over death when he restored the life of the widow’s son.  Jesus’ own Resurrection shows us what eternal life will be like for us.

For more on Purgatory, please see my article, “Purgatory as a Gift That Gets Us in Shape for Heaven.”

Peace,

Fr. Jeff