It is natural for all of us that at times our thoughts turn to those whom we have loved who are no longer with us.
How appropriate, then, that the Catholic Church offers us November, which begins with All Saints Day and All Souls Day, as the Month of the Holy Souls. As Catholics, we understand that God desires us to cleanse our souls of all that might keep us from experiencing the fullness of joy in Heaven and so during November, we pray especially for those who have died, that they may soon experience the fullness of heaven.

It’s like this.  Perhaps when life is troubling us, we'll ask a relative or close friend to pray for us. It is very good that we do ask people to pray for us and our needs and also to pray for them. Praying to the saints is like asking your friend to pray for you. You still pray to Jesus, but your friend is praying with you. Not only does prayer help benefit the receiver, but also the person who prays. It draws us all into closer union with Christ and with each other.

The saints are our fellow Christians who have died in God's favor, and now are in the closest union with him. God is well pleased with them, and so, He is especially willing to grant their petitions. When we here on earth have recourse to the saints by praying to them, we are merely asking them to ask God for us.

But why is it necessary to celebrate the feast of all saints? All year round we are celebrating feasts of special saints: Thomas Aquinas, Augustine, Theresa of Lisieux, and our Australian Saint Mary MacKillop whose feast day we celebrate in August. Why then is it necessary to set apart a day to celebrate the feast of all saints? I can think of two important reasons.

Firstly, beside the relatively small number of saints whose feast days we celebrate on specific days in the year, there are countless other saints and martyrs,  men, women and children united with God whom we do not celebrate on a special day of their own. Many of these would be our own parents and grand-parents who were heroic women and men of faith. On All Saints Day and All Souls Day we keep their memory.

Secondly, this celebration gives us a peek into our eternal destiny. The saints we celebrate were men and women like us. Where we are now they used to be and where they are now we hope to be someday! As Christians we know that a person's life story is not limited to what happens to them between the day they are born and the day they die. Our story starts before we are born, at our conception, and goes beyond the day we die, to all eternity. That is why we do not simply forget people after they die.

In fact, one of the most beautiful articles in the Apostles’ Creed is that which speaks of the ‘communion of saints’. We can understand ‘communion of saints’ as referring to ourselves as the community of believers. On the feast of all saints, we might even hail one another with the words ‘happy feast day,’ indicating by such a greeting that we think that we are saints in the sense that we belong to the community of people called to be saints.

This combined communion of saints includes all of us who are more or less saints (some more, some less!) plus all those who have entered into full communion with God. We are all related because Baptism is so strong a link that not even death can break it.

St Paul in his letters to the early Christians often called them ‘saints’. We rightly deserve to be called saints, as people baptized into Christ. Because Baptism unites us to Jesus, the Holy One of God, and united to Jesus we are united and related to one another. We constitute a communion. The communion of saints is another way of designating the Church. Today we are invited to walk the path of the saints. The way is narrow and hard, and we will need faith and courage to walk it. The example of the saints and their prayers encourage us and help us on. When St Augustine read the lives of the saints he said, "Look at what these ordinary women and men have done, why not me?"  We might also ask ourselves: Why not me?

So during this month of November, let us reflect on the communion of saints: the saints in heaven the holy souls and ourselves: the Church on earth:

Saints are friends and models of life for us. They challenge us to be compassionate people, to be men and women who are pure in heart, and to become the peacemakers in our dealings with one another, in our families and in the society at large.

For the faithful departed, especially during November, let us pray: Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.

Lastly, for ourselves, let us pray for one another in the diocese of Sandhurst, that at the end of our life we shall, together with the saints ,hear the words of the Lord, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant, enter into the joys of the Lord’ (Matthew 25:21).

  - Bishop Les Tomlinson, Catholic Diocese of Sandhurst, November 2012