Liturgical Readings for : Saturday, 2nd November, 2024
Nov 2: The Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed
All Soul’s day (Year 2024)
FIRST READING
A reading from the book of Isaiah 25:6-9
The Lord will destroy death forever.
On this mountain, the Lord of hosts will prepare for all peoples a banquet of rich food,
a banquet of fine wines, of food rich and juicy, of fine strained wines.
On this mountain he will remove the mourning veil covering all peoples,
and the shroud enwrapping all nations, he will destroy Death for ever.
The Lord will wipe away the tears from every cheek;
he will take away his people’s shame
everywhere on earth, for the Lord has said so.
That day, it will be said: See, this is our God in whom we hoped for salvation;
the Lord is the one in whom we hoped. We exult and we rejoice that he has saved us.
The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
Responsorial Psalm Ps 26: 1, 4. 7-9, 13-14 Rv V13
Response The Lord is my light and my help.
Or I believe that I shall see the Lord’s goodness in the land of the living.
1. The Lord is my light and my help; whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the stronghold of my life; before whom shall I shrink? Response
2. There is one thing I ask of the Lord, for this I long, to live in the house of the Lord, all the days of my life, to savour the sweetness of the Lord, to behold his temple. Response
3. O Lord, hear my voice when I call; have mercy and answer.
It is your face, O Lord, that I seek; hide not your face. Response
4. I am sure I shall see the Lord’s goodness in the land of the living.
Hope in him, hold firm and take heart. Hope in the Lord! Response
SECOND READING
A reading from the letter of St Paul to the Romans 5:5-11
Having died to make us righteous, is it likely that he would now fail to save us from God’s anger?
Hope is not deceptive, because the love of God has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit which has been given us. We were still helpless when at his appointed moment Christ died for sinful men. It is not easy to die even for a good man – though of course for someone really worthy, a man might be prepared to die – but what proves that God loves us is that Christ died for us while we were still sinners. Having died to make us righteous, is it likely that he would now fail to save us from God’s anger?
When we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, we were still enemies; now that we have been reconciled, surely we may count on being saved by the life of his Son? Not merely because we have been reconciled but because we are filled with joyful trust in God, through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have already gained our reconciliation.
The Word of the Lord Thanks be to God.
Gospel Acclamation Jn 6: 39
Alleluia, alleluia!
It is my Father’s will, says the Lord, That I should lose nothing of all that he has given me,
and that I should raise it up on the last day.
Alleluia
GOSPEL Year B, 2024 – Alternate Gospels below
The Lord be with you. And with your spirit
A reading from the holy Gospel according to Mark 15:33-39 16:1-6 Glory to you, O Lord.
Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last.
When the sixth hour came there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour.
And at the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice,
‘Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?’ which means, ‘My God, My God, why have you deserted me?’
When some of those who stood by heard this, they said,
‘Listen, he is calling on Elijah.‘ Someone ran and soaked a sponge in vinegar and,
putting it on a reed, gave it him to drink saying,
‘Wait and see if Elijah will come to take him down.’
But Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last. And the veil of the Temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The centurion, who was standing in front of him, had seen how he had died, and he said,
In truth this man was a son of God.’
When the sabbath was over, Mary of Magdala, Mary the mother of James, and Salome, bought spices with which to go and anoint him. And very early in the morning on the first day of the week they went to the tomb, just as the sun was rising. They had been saying to one another,
‘Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?’
But when they looked they could see that the stone — which was very big — had already been rolled back.
On entering the tomb they saw a young man in a white robe seated on the right-hand side, and they were struck with amazement.
But he said to them,
‘There is no need for alarm. You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified:
he has risen, he is not here. See, here is the place where they laid him.’
The Gospel of the Lord. Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.
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Gospel Reflection Commemoration of all the Faithful Departed Mark 15:33-39 16:1-6
The opening prayer of today’s Mass sets the tone for this commemoration, ‘God… may all your people who have gone before us in faith share Christ’s victory and enjoy the vision of your glory for ever’. The Prayer after Communion likewise prays for ‘our brothers and sisters who have died’, asking, ‘Bring the new life given to them in baptism to the fullness of eternal joy’. Enjoying the vision of God’s glory forever and attaining the fullness of eternal joy is what we are praying for as we remember our deceased loved ones on this day. The suggested gospel reading for this year of Mark is a combination of the account of the crucifixion of Jesus and the finding of the empty tomb. It is said of Jesus in the gospel reading that he ‘gave a loud cry and breathed his last’.
Many of us will have been present when a loved one breathed their last breath. No matter how much we have been expecting it, that moment remains a traumatic one. There is a sense of finality about it which no amount of anticipation can fully prepare us for. The dark sadness of death engulfs us, just as it must have engulfed the disciples of Jesus, including the woman who stood at a distance watching Jesus die, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome.
On the third day, these women went to the tomb of Jesus to dignify his body with aromatic oils. Yet, to their amazement, where death was to be expected, life reigned, ‘You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified: he is risen, he is not here’. It is as if the young man was saying to the women, ‘if you want to meet Jesus, don’t come to his tomb’. God had brought Jesus through death into a new and more powerful life over which death has no power.
The risen Jesus would meet his disciples in Galilee, where he first called them, and, thereafter, ‘the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by the signs that accompanied it’ (Mk 16:20). The life that Jesus now enjoys is the ultimate destiny of all who believe in him. Earlier in Mark’s gospel, Jesus declared that those who follow him ‘will receive a hundredfold now in this age… and in the age to come eternal life’ (Mk 10:30). This is the hope that the gospel gives us and, as Saint Paul says in our second reading, ‘Hope is not deceptive, because the love of God has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit which has been given to us’. The Holy Spirit gives us the assurance of God’s love, a love that, in the words of Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, ‘never ends’, remaining faithful to us beyond death. Although ‘now we see in a mirror dimly… then we will see face to face’ (1 Cor 13:8, 12).
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Alternate GOSPEL (Year A)
The Lord be with you. And with your spirit
A reading from the holy Gospel according to Luke 7:11-17
Young man, I tell you to get up.
Jesus went to a town called Nain, accompanied by his disciples and a great number of people. When he was near the gate of the town it happened that a dead man was being carried out for burial, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. And a considerable number of the townspeople were with her. When the Lord saw her he felt sorry for her.
‘Do not cry,’ he said.
Then he went up and put his hand on the bier and the bearers stood still, and he said,
‘Young man, I tell you to get up’.
And the dead man sat up and began to talk, and Jesus gave him to his mother.
Everyone was filled with awe and praised God saying, ‘A great prophet has appeared among us; God has visited his people’. And this opinion of him spread throughout Judaea and all over the countryside.
The Gospel of the Lord Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.
*****************************
Gospel Reflection Commemoration of all the Faithful Departed Luke 7:11-17
I always find November a somewhat sombre and difficult month. The golden colours of autumn are quickly giving way to the barrenness of winter. As the month progresses, the days will get gradually shorter and darkness will increasingly make its presence felt. We lose the colours of nature and the life-giving quality of light. It is a month I associate with loss. It is perhaps fitting, then, that November is the month when we reflect upon more personal experiences of loss, the loss of significant people in our lives, people who have journeyed with us, who gave us love and whom we loved in return. The commemoration of All Souls is a day when we do that in a special way.
On this day, we feel a sense of communion with our faithful departed. As followers of a risen Lord, we believe that our faithful have not just departed from us but have also returned to God, from whom they came. We understand death as a door through which we pass back to the source of our being, the Creator of all life. We also believe that our loved ones, in passing over into God, do not break their communion with us. Even though they have departed from us, they remain in communion with us and we remain in communion with them. A vital stream of life continues to flow between our deceased loved ones and ourselves. The faith and love that bound us together in this life still binds us to them when they pass over into the next life. In the gospel reading, Jesus gives her son back to the grieving widow. One of the ways we expressed our love for our loved ones in this life was by praying for them. Our loved ones who have died can still be touched by the love that finds its voice in prayer. Prayerful remembrance is one of the ways we continue to give expression to our loving communion with them. Such prayer helps them and can also help us. None of us will have had a perfect relationship even with those we have loved the most. When someone close to us dies, there is always some unfinished business. Praying for our loved ones can help to heal whatever may need healing in our relationship with them. As a result, our communion with them can deepen after their death until it comes to fullness at the moment when we too pass over from this life and are united with them in God’s love at that great banquet of life portrayed in today’s first reading.
Although nothing is more painful than the loss of a loved one in death, our faith gives us this hope-filled vision in the face of death. In today’s second reading, Paul says that ‘hope is not deceptive, because the love of God has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit which has been given to us’. Our hope is grounded in God’s love for us now, a very personal love that is poured into the hearts of each one of us through the Holy Spirit. God’s love, revealed in Jesus and poured into our hearts through the Spirit, continues to hold on to us when we pass through the door of death. As all authentic human love is always life-giving for the one loved, God’s love is supremely life-giving for us, even in the face of our bodily death. What God’s love has already done for us through his Son and the Spirit in this life is the assurance of what God’s love will do for us in eternity. As Paul says in the second reading, ‘Now that we have been reconciled [to God], surely we may count on being saved by the life of his Son’.
__________________
The Scripture Readings are taken from The Jerusalem Bible, published 1966 by Darton, Longman & Todd Ltd.
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Alternate GOSPEL (Year B, 2024)
The Lord be with you. And with your spirit
A reading from the holy Gospel according to Mark 15:33-39 16:1-6 Glory to you, O Lord.
Theme: Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last.
When the sixth hour came there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice,
‘Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?’
which means,
‘My God, my God, why have you deserted me?’
When some of those who stood by heard this, they said,
‘Listen, he is calling on Elijah.‘
Someone ran and soaked a sponge in vinegar and, putting it on a reed, gave it him to drink saying,
Wait and see if Elijah will come to take him down.’
But Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last. And the veil of the Temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The centurion, who was standing in front of him, had seen how he had died, and he said,
In truth this man was a son of God.’
When the sabbath was over, Mary of Magdala, Mary the mother of James, and Salome, bought spices with which to go and anoint him. And very early in the morning on the first day of the week they went to the tomb, just as the sun was rising.
They had been saying to one another,
‘Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?’
But when they looked they could see that the stone — which was very big — had already been rolled back. On entering the tomb they saw a young man in a white robe seated on the right-hand side, and they were struck with amazement. But he said to them,
‘There is no need for alarm. You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified: he has risen, he is not here. See, here is the place where they laid him.’
The Gospel of the Lord. Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.
GOSPEL (Year A)
The Lord be with you. And with your spirit
A reading from the holy Gospel according to Luke 7:11-17
Young man, I tell you to get up.
Jesus went to a town called Nain, accompanied by his disciples and a great number of people. When he was near the gate of the town it happened that a dead man was being carried out for burial, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. And a considerable number of the townspeople were with her. When the Lord saw her he felt sorry for her. ‘Do not cry,’ he said. Then he went up and put his hand on the bier and the bearers stood still, and he said, ‘Young man, I tell you to get up’.
And the dead man sat up and began to talk, and Jesus gave him to his mother. Everyone was filled with awe and praised God saying, ‘A great prophet has appeared among us; God has visited his people’. And this opinion of him spread throughout Judaea and all over the countryside.
The Gospel of the Lord Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.
******************************
Gospel Reflection Commemoration of all the Faithful Departed Luke 7:11-17
I always find November a somewhat sombre and difficult month. The golden colours of autumn are quickly giving way to the barrenness of winter. As the month progresses, the days will get gradually shorter and darkness will increasingly make its presence felt. We lose the colours of nature and the life-giving quality of light. It is a month I associate with loss. It is perhaps fitting, then, that November is the month when we reflect upon more personal experiences of loss, the loss of significant people in our lives, people who have journeyed with us, who gave us love and whom we loved in return. The commemoration of All Souls is a day when we do that in a special way.
On this day, we feel a sense of communion with our faithful departed. As followers of a risen Lord, we believe that our faithful have not just departed from us but have also returned to God, from whom they came. We understand death as a door through which we pass back to the source of our being, the Creator of all life. We also believe that our loved ones, in passing over into God, do not break their communion with us. Even though they have departed from us, they remain in communion with us and we remain in communion with them. A vital stream of life continues to flow between our deceased loved ones and ourselves. The faith and love that bound us together in this life still binds us to them when they pass over into the next life. In the gospel reading, Jesus gives her son back to the grieving widow. One of the ways we expressed our love for our loved ones in this life was by praying for them. Our loved ones who have died can still be touched by the love that finds its voice in prayer. Prayerful remembrance is one of the ways we continue to give expression to our loving communion with them. Such prayer helps them and can also help us. None of us will have had a perfect relationship even with those we have loved the most. When someone close to us dies, there is always some unfinished business. Praying for our loved ones can help to heal whatever may need healing in our relationship with them. As a result, our communion with them can deepen after their death until it comes to fullness at the moment when we too pass over from this life and are united with them in God’s love at that great banquet of life portrayed in today’s first reading.
Although nothing is more painful than the loss of a loved one in death, our faith gives us this hope-filled vision in the face of death. In today’s second reading, Paul says that ‘hope is not deceptive, because the love of God has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit which has been given to us’. Our hope is grounded in God’s love for us now, a very personal love that is poured into the hearts of each one of us through the Holy Spirit. God’s love, revealed in Jesus and poured into our hearts through the Spirit, continues to hold on to us when we pass through the door of death. As all authentic human love is always life-giving for the one loved, God’s love is supremely life-giving for us, even in the face of our bodily death. What God’s love has already done for us through his Son and the Spirit in this life is the assurance of what God’s love will do for us in eternity. As Paul says in the second reading, ‘Now that we have been reconciled [to God], surely we may count on being saved by the life of his Son’.
__________________
The Scripture Readings are taken from The Jerusalem Bible, published by Darton, Longman and Todd Ltd
_______________________________
Alternate GOSPELS (Year C )
The Lord be with you. And with your spirit
A reading from the holy Gospel according to Luke 7:11-17 Glory to you O Lord
Theme: Young man, I tell you to get up.
Jesus went to a town called Nain, accompanied by his disciples and a great number of people. When he was near the gate of the town it happened that a dead man was being carried out for burial, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. And a considerable number of the townspeople were with her. When the Lord saw her he felt sorry for her.
‘Do not cry,’ he said. Then he went up and put his hand on the bier and the bearers stood still, and he said,
‘Young man, I tell you to get up’.
And the dead man sat up and began to talk, and Jesus gave him to his mother.
Everyone was filled with awe and praised God saying,
‘A great prophet has appeared among us; God has visited his people’.
And this opinion of him spread throughout Judaea and all over the countryside.
The Gospel of the Lord Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.
Gospel Reflection Commemoration of all the Faithful Departed 2022 Luke 7:11-17
I always find November a somewhat sombre and difficult month. The golden colours of autumn are quickly giving way to the barrenness of winter. As the month progresses, the days will get gradually shorter and darkness will increasingly make its presence felt. We lose the colours of nature and the life-giving quality of light. It is a month I associate with loss. It is perhaps fitting, then, that November is the month when we reflect upon more personal experiences of loss, the loss of significant people in our lives, people who have journeyed with us, who gave us love and whom we loved in return. The Commemoration of All Souls is a day when we do that in a special way.
On this day, we feel a sense of communion with our faithful departed. As followers of a risen Lord, we believe that our faithful have not just departed from us but have also returned to God, from whom they came. We understand death as a door through which we pass back to the source of our being, the Creator of all life. We also believe that our loved ones, in passing over into God, do not break their communion with us. Even though they have departed from us, they remain in communion with us and we remain in communion with them. A vital stream of life continues to flow between our deceased loved ones and ourselves. The faith and love that bound us together in this life still binds us to them when they pass over into the next life.
In the gospel reading, Jesus gives her son back to the grieving widow. One of the ways we expressed our love for our loved ones in this life was by praying for them. Our loved ones who have died can still be touched by the love that finds its voice in prayer. Prayerful remembrance is one of the ways we continue to give expression to our loving communion with them. Such prayer helps them and can also help us. None of us will have had a perfect relationship even with those we have loved the most. When someone close to us dies, there is always some unfinished business. Praying for our loved ones can help to heal whatever may need healing in our relationship with them. As a result, our communion with them can deepen after their death until it comes to fullness at the moment when we too pass over from this life and are united with them in God’s love at that great banquet of life portrayed in today’s first reading.
Although nothing is more painful than the loss of a loved one in death, our faith gives us this hope-filled vision in the face of death. In today’s second reading, Paul says that ‘hope is not deceptive, because the love of God has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit which has been given to us’. Our hope is grounded in God’s love for us now, a very personal love that is poured into the hearts of each one of us through the Holy Spirit. God’s love, revealed in Jesus and poured into our hearts through the Spirit, continues to hold on to us when we pass through the door of death. As all authentic human love is always life-giving for the one loved, God’s love is supremely life-giving for us, even in the face of our bodily death. What God’s love has already done for us through his Son and the Spirit in this life is the assurance of what God’s love will do for us in eternity. As Paul says in the second reading, ‘Now that we have been reconciled [to God], surely we may count on being saved by the life of his Son’.
******************************
Alternate Gospel Reflection 2ndNov. Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed 2023 Matthew 11:25-30
Today is a day when we remember all our loved ones who have died. We all have people we want to remember and pray for today. Our praying for the dead is one of the ways that we give expression to our communion with our loved ones who have died. We believe in the communion of saints, that deep spiritual bond between those who have reached the end of their earthly pilgrimage and ourselves who are still on that pilgrimage. In the gospel reading, a group of women who had followed Jesus in Galilee and had come up to Jerusalem from Galilee with him, were in communion with Jesus as he was dying. They were looking on from a distance as he hung from the cross. Once he died, they must have thought that their communion with him was broken forever. Yet, when they went to the tomb to anoint his body on that first Easter morning, they heard the wonderful news that Jesus who had been crucified was now risen. Their communion with Jesus and his with them had not been broken by death after all. He would continue to relate to them, and they could continue to relate to him, in a new and different way.
Because of Jesus’ death and resurrection we believe that beyond death,
our loved ones are being drawn into the risen life of Jesus;
for them, life has changed not ended, and our relationship with them has changed not ended.
Because of our communion with the Lord in this life, and their new communion with the Lord in the next life, we and they remain in communion, in an even deeper communion, even though it is not visible.
Every year, the church gives us this day, the 2nd of November, to express in a prayerful way our communion with those we were close to in this life who have died. We pause this day to give thanks for their lives, to pray for them, and to ask them to pray for us.
*****************
Alternate GOSPEL (Year 2024)
The Lord be with you. And with your spirit
A reading from the holy Gospel according to Mark 15:33-39 16:1-6 Glory to you, O Lord.
Theme: Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last.
When the sixth hour came there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice,
‘Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?’
which means,
‘My God, my God, why have you deserted me?’
When some of those who stood by heard this, they said,
‘Listen, he is calling on Elijah.‘
Someone ran and soaked a sponge in vinegar and, putting it on a reed, gave it him to drink saying,
Wait and see if Elijah will come to take him down.’
But Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last. And the veil of the Temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The centurion, who was standing in front of him, had seen how he had died, and he said,
In truth this man was a son of God.’
When the sabbath was over, Mary of Magdala, Mary the mother of James, and Salome, bought spices with which to go and anoint him. And very early in the morning on the first day of the week they went to the tomb, just as the sun was rising.
They had been saying to one another,
‘Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?’
But when they looked they could see that the stone — which was very big — had already been rolled back. On entering the tomb they saw a young man in a white robe seated on the right-hand side, and they were struck with amazement. But he said to them,
‘There is no need for alarm. You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified: he has risen, he is not here. See, here is the place where they laid him.’
The Gospel of the Lord. Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.
********************
Gospel Reflection 2ndNov. Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed Matthew 11:25-30
Today is a day when we remember all our loved ones who have died. We all have people we want to remember and pray for today. Our praying for the dead is one of the ways that we give expression to our communion with our loved ones who have died. We believe in the communion of saints, that deep spiritual bond between those who have reached the end of their earthly pilgrimage and ourselves who are still on that pilgrimage. In the gospel reading, a group of women who had followed Jesus in Galilee and had come up to Jerusalem from Galilee with him, were in communion with Jesus as he was dying. They were looking on from a distance as he hung from the cross. Once he died, they must have thought that their communion with him was broken forever. Yet, when they went to the tomb to anoint his body on that first Easter morning, they heard the wonderful news that Jesus who had been crucified was now risen. Their communion with Jesus and his with them had not been broken by death after all. He would continue to relate to them, and they could continue to relate to him, in a new and different way.
Because of Jesus’ death and resurrection we believe that beyond death,
our loved ones are being drawn into the risen life of Jesus;
for them, life has changed not ended, and our relationship with them has changed not ended.
Because of our communion with the Lord in this life, and their new communion with the Lord in the next life, we and they remain in communion, in an even deeper communion, even though it is not visible.
Every year, the church gives us this day, the 2nd of November, to express in a prayerful way our communion with those we were close to in this life who have died. We pause this day to give thanks for their lives, to pray for them, and to ask them to pray for us.
*******************************************
GOSPEL (Year A,)
The Lord be with you. And with your spirit
A reading from the holy Gospel according to Matthew 11:25-30 Glory to you, O Lord.
Theme: You have hidden these things from the learned and the clever and revealing them to mere children.
Jesus exclaimed, ‘I bless you, Father, Lord of heaven and of earth, for hiding these things from the learned and the clever and revealing them to mere children. Yes, Father, for that is what it pleased you to do. Everything has been entrusted to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, just as no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.
‘Come to me, all you who labour and are overburdened, and I will give you rest. Shoulder my yoke and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. Yes, my yoke is easy and my burden light.’
The Gospel of the Lord. Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.
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Gospel Reflection Monday, Commemoration of all the faithful departed Matt. 11:25-30
Today is the day when we give expression to what we refer to in the creed as ‘the communion of saints’. We believe that there is a deep, spiritual, communion between those of us who are still on our pilgrim way and those who have come to the end of their pilgrim journey. As the funeral liturgy of the church states, ‘all the ties of love and affection that knit us together in this life do not unravel with death’. Saint Paul puts it more simply in his first letter to the Corinthians, ‘love never ends’. One of the ways we expressed our communion with our loved ones before they died was by praying for them. If we are people of faith, we will pray for those who are significant for us. Just as our love for our loved ones does not cease when they die, neither does our praying for them cease, which is an expression of our enduring love for them. Today is a special day of prayerful remembrance for our loved ones who have died. A traditional prayer we often pray for those who have died is ‘eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them’. We can sometimes think of rest as something passive, the absence of activity. We could also think of rest in a way suggested by that lovely psalm that is often prayed at a funeral, ‘The Lord is my Shepherd’. Towards the end of that psalm we read, ‘near restful waters he leads me to revive my drooping spirits’. Rest is associated with a revival of our spirits. Eternal rest is an eternal revival of our deepest self. One of the early saints of the church, Saint Ephrem, wrote, ‘in the kingdom our departed ones achieve their full stature’. When we are praying that God would give our departed loved ones eternal rest, this is what we are praying for. The invitation of Jesus in today’s gospel reading, ‘Come to me’, and his promise, ‘I will give you rest’, suggests that already in this earthly life we can begin to enter into this reviving rest which allows us to reach our full stature.
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Alternate GOSPEL (Year A)
The Lord be with you. And with your spirit
A reading from the holy Gospel according to Luke 7:11-17
Theme: Young man, I tell you to get up.
Jesus went to a town called Nain, accompanied by his disciples and a great number of people. When he was near the gate of the town it happened that a dead man was being carried out for burial, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. And a considerable number of the townspeople were with her. When the Lord saw her he felt sorry for her. ‘Do not cry,’ he said. Then he went up and put his hand on the bier and the bearers stood still, and he said, ‘Young man, I tell you to get up’. And the dead man sat up and began to talk, and Jesus gave him to his mother. Everyone was filled with awe and praised God saying, ‘A great prophet has appeared among us; God has visited his people’. And this opinion of him spread throughout Judaea and all over the countryside.
The Gospel of the Lord Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.
******************************
Gospel Reflection Commemoration of all the Faithful Departed Luke 7:11-17
I always find November a somewhat sombre and difficult month. The golden colours of autumn are quickly giving way to the barrenness of winter. As the month progresses, the days will get gradually shorter and darkness will increasingly make its presence felt. We lose the colours of nature and the life-giving quality of light. It is a month I associate with loss. It is perhaps fitting, then, that November is the month when we reflect upon more personal experiences of loss, the loss of significant people in our lives, people who have journeyed with us, who gave us love and whom we loved in return. The commemoration of All Souls is a day when we do that in a special way.
On this day, we feel a sense of communion with our faithful departed. As followers of a risen Lord, we believe that our faithful have not just departed from us but have also returned to God, from whom they came. We understand death as a door through which we pass back to the source of our being, the Creator of all life. We also believe that our loved ones, in passing over into God, do not break their communion with us. Even though they have departed from us, they remain in communion with us and we remain in communion with them. A vital stream of life continues to flow between our deceased loved ones and ourselves. The faith and love that bound us together in this life still binds us to them when they pass over into the next life. In the gospel reading, Jesus gives her son back to the grieving widow. One of the ways we expressed our love for our loved ones in this life was by praying for them. Our loved ones who have died can still be touched by the love that finds its voice in prayer. Prayerful remembrance is one of the ways we continue to give expression to our loving communion with them. Such prayer helps them and can also help us. None of us will have had a perfect relationship even with those we have loved the most. When someone close to us dies, there is always some unfinished business. Praying for our loved ones can help to heal whatever may need healing in our relationship with them. As a result, our communion with them can deepen after their death until it comes to fullness at the moment when we too pass over from this life and are united with them in God’s love at that great banquet of life portrayed in today’s first reading.
Although nothing is more painful than the loss of a loved one in death, our faith gives us this hope-filled vision in the face of death. In today’s second reading, Paul says that ‘hope is not deceptive, because the love of God has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit which has been given to us’. Our hope is grounded in God’s love for us now, a very personal love that is poured into the hearts of each one of us through the Holy Spirit. God’s love, revealed in Jesus and poured into our hearts through the Spirit, continues to hold on to us when we pass through the door of death. As all authentic human love is always life-giving for the one loved, God’s love is supremely life-giving for us, even in the face of our bodily death. What God’s love has already done for us through his Son and the Spirit in this life is the assurance of what God’s love will do for us in eternity. As Paul says in the second reading, ‘Now that we have been reconciled [to God], surely we may count on being saved by the life of his Son’.
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The Scripture Readings are taken from The Jerusalem Bible, published by Darton, Longman and Todd Ltd _______________________________
Alternate Readings Nov 2. Gospel Readings for years A, B, and C
GOSPEL (Year A,)
A reading from the holy Gospel according to Matthew 11:25-30
You have hidden these things from the learned and the clever and revealing them to mere children.
Jesus exclaimed, ‘I bless you, Father, Lord of heaven and of earth, for hiding these things from the learned and the clever and revealing them to mere children. Yes, Father, for that is what it pleased you to do. Everything has been entrusted to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, just as no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.
‘Come to me, all you who labour and are overburdened, and I will give you rest. Shoulder my yoke and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. Yes, my yoke is easy and my burden light.’
The Gospel of the Lord.
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Gospel Reflection Commemoration of all the faithful departed Matthew 11:25-30
Today we remember all our faithful departed. Most of us will be remembering those we have known and loved – family members and good friends. Indeed, the whole month of November is a time when we remember our dead in a special way. As Christians, our remembering of those who have died is always a prayerful remembering. We remember them before the Lord. Remembering our departed loved ones before the Lord, praying for them, is one of the ways we give expression to our ongoing communion with them in the Lord. We believe that they are with the Lord, and that the Lord is also with us in this life. It is that shared relationship with the Lord which keeps us in communion with our loved ones who have died. In praying for our loved one, we pray in petition for them, asking the Lord to bring them to the fullness of his life and peace, in keeping with his invitation to those who are burdened to come to him and to find rest, in today’s gospel reading. We ask that they would come to know God the Father as Jesus does, in keeping with his promise in the gospel reading to reveal the Father to us. We also pray in thanksgiving for them, thanking God for the gift of their lives and for all the ways the Lord blessed us through them. Today, we confidently entrust our loved ones who have died to God who so loved the world that he gave his only Son so that we may have life and have it to the full.
GOSPEL (Year B)
A reading from the holy Gospel according to Mark 15:33-39 16:1-6
Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last.
When the sixth hour came there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, ‘Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?’ which means, ‘My God, my God, why have you deserted me?’ When some of those who stod by heard this, they said, ‘Listen, he is calling on Elijah.’ Someone ran and soaked a sponge in vinegar and, putting it on a reed, gave it him to drink saying, ‘Wait and see if Elijah will come to take him down.’ But Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last. And the veil of the Temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The centurion, who was standing in front of him, had seen how he had died, and he said, ‘In truth this man was a son of God.’
When the sabbath was over, Mary of Magdala, Mary the mother of James, and Salome, bought spices with which to go and anoint him. And very early in the morning on the first day of the week they went to the tomb, just as the sun was rising.
They had been saying to one another, ‘Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?’ But when they looked they could see that the stone — which was very big — had already been rolled back. On entering the tomb they saw a young man in a white robe seated on the right-hand side, and they were struck with amazement. But he said to them, ‘There is no need for alarm. You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified: he has risen, he is not here. See, here is the place where they laid him.’
The Gospel of the Lord.
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Gospel Reflection 2ndNov. Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed Matthew 11:25-30
The feast of all souls is a day when we remember all our loved ones who have died. We all have people we want to remember and pray for today. Our praying for the dead is one of the ways that we give expression to our continuing communion with our loved ones who have died. We believe in the communion of saints, that deep spiritual bond between those who have reached the end of their earthly pilgrimage and those, like ourselves, who are still on that pilgrimage. Our deceased loved ones continue to relate to us and we continue to them, in a new and different way. Because of Jesus’ death and resurrection, we believe that beyond death, our loved ones are being drawn into the risen life of Jesus. In the language of today’s gospel reading, the Son who knows the Father intimately is now fully revealing the Father to them, and in coming to share in Jesus’ own intimate relationship with God his Father, they are finding rest from all that burdened them in this life. For them, life has changed not ended, and our relationship with them has changed not ended. Their closer relationship with the Lord brings them closer to us in the Lord. Every year, the church gives us this day, the 2nd of November, to express our relationship with those we were close to in this life who have died. We pause this day to give thanks for their lives, to pray for them, and to ask them to pray for us.
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GOSPEL (Year C, 2019)
A reading from the holy Gospel according to Luke 7:11-17
Young man, I tell you to get up.
Jesus went to a town called Nain, accompanied by his disciples and a great number of people. When he was near the gate of the town it happened that a dead man was being carried out for burial, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. And a considerable number of the townspeople were with her. When the Lord saw her he felt sorry for her. ‘Do not cry,’ he said. Then he went up and put his hand on the bier and the bearers stood still, and he said, ‘Young man, I tell you to get up’. And the dead man sat up and began to talk, and Jesus gave him to his mother. Everyone was filled with awe and praised God saying, ‘A great prophet has appeared among us; God has visited his people’. And this opinion of him spread throughout Judaea and all over the countryside.
The Gospel of the Lord.
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