In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen.
May the Lord give you his peace.
Yes, yesterday we remembered all of the deceased who are languishing in purgatory,
longing for the beatific vision, longing to be enfolded in the love of God,
in his immediate presence in heaven.
That's what we call All Souls Day.
Today, rather, we have a very specific group of souls that we are praying for,
and that's all of the deceased of the Seraphic Order, of the Franciscan Order.
That includes all of the friars, sisters, poor clairs, the tertiaries,
and it also includes our benefactors.
We pray for them in a special way because of the special bond that unites them to us
through the charity they've shown us down through the years.
And so this is the commemoration of all the deceased of the Seraphic Order,
and it's very important, of course, for us to pray specifically for the members of our own spiritual families
because, as sacred scripture tells us, charity begins at home.
Our glory in heaven is the fruit of our living charitably here on earth
and will shine in heaven to the degree that we have exercised charity, love, in our lives in this world.
And we're deluding ourselves if we think that we're serving God
and we don't know how to love the people that are closest to us,
the people that God has put in our immediate presence in our lives.
It's interesting.
Sometimes it's easier for us to exercise charity toward people that aren't as close to us,
the stranger you meet on the street, the person you meet at the store, or whatever it might be,
because there's always this, you know, you don't have the familiarity with them.
You're not as...
aware of their faults and their defects.
There may not be hidden resentments and things like that.
And so that's not really the true test of our charity.
Sometimes it's actually easier to love the person who's persecuting you, who you've never met before,
than it is to love the person that lives in the same house as you,
your fellow, your confrere, if you're a friar, or within the home.
You know, it might be tougher to love your own spouse or your own children
or your own family.
You might love your own parents, your own brothers and sisters.
And so the true test of our charity is how much do we love the people in our own family?
How much do we love the people with whom we deal day in and day out in our lives?
There's an old saying that you only love God to the degree that you love your worst enemy.
In other words, your love for God is only as deep as your love for the person who's most difficult for you,
the person you're most tempted to lash out.
And who is our enemy?
Well, our Lord tells us your enemies will be those of your own household.
So in other words, you only love God as much as you love the person who grates on you most in your own house.
And so we should make a little examination of conscience.
How much do I love the person who grates on me most?
How much do I love the person who most puts my virtue to the test?
How much do I love the person who's hurt me most in my family?
And if you find that you don't love them very much,
that you're tempted always to shuffle them off, to scoot them to the side,
or if you find that you don't pray for them,
or that you have resentments toward them, or whatever it might be,
well, now you know what to do.
If you want to grow in holiness, if you want to be a true Christian,
you need to learn to love that person who's most difficult for you.
And you don't love them just in this world.
You also have to love them after they pass away.
There's an old expression also, out of sight, out of mind.
It's very easy to forget about a person after they've passed away.
Not always.
Sometimes you realize the loss that you've had when you start to appreciate them only after they die.
But other times it's easy for us to kind of forget about them.
You brush them under the rug because you no longer have to deal with them day in and day out.
We have to pray for the departed as well.
Right?
We have to remember that now more than ever, if they're in purgatory, they need our charity.
Because they can't pray for themselves in purgatory.
They need us to pray for them.
To offer them that drop of water which will comfort them in their pains
and which will bring them closer to the vision and the presence of God in heaven.
And so let's pray for all of the duly departed of the seraphic order
and all of those of our own families.
So that we can...
Truly become like Christ our Lord and join him in his joy, in his bliss, in heaven.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.