Catholic Ireland
Liturgical Readings for : Thursday, 2nd November, 2023
The Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed All Soul’s day (Year 2023)
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
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
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 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.
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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 1966 by Darton, Longman & Todd Ltd.
