In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.
Our Lady, Queen of Purgatory, pray for us.
Saint Joseph, pray for us.
Our Patron Saints and Guardian Angels, pray for us.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
On this All Souls Day, we are praying for the dead,
as Pope Benedict XV, way back in 1915,
gave priests the permission to celebrate three Masses on this day.
At that time, he was concerned over the amount,
the amount of bloodshed, and the amount of men who were killed in World War I,
and he wanted to have Masses offered up for the repose of their souls.
Seeing that so many may have died, you know, unprovided death,
and that they needed, also they need prayers,
that the Church could assist them, even after their death,
with the offering of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
Now, there's two issues.
Now, there's two issues. Now, there's two issues. Now, there's two issues.
Now, there's two issues. Now, there's two issues.
Now, there's two issues. Now, there's two important events in our lives.
The day we are born, and the day we die.
Those are the two important dates,
and we always record those.
You know, no matter how famous a person is,
they all have those two dates.
There's a day they entered into this world,
and there's a day they exit.
And really, the one, hopefully, if properly prepared for,
you know, that...
Not everyone, maybe, enters into this world
with, you know, the best conditions.
But hopefully, by the time they leave this world,
they have made use of God's grace,
and responded to His grace,
that the day they exit from this world
is another being born into eternal life,
and that they are prepared for that day.
Many of the things that the Church has taught
taught the faithful by word and example
is that we ought to be prepared for the day that we die.
And so many sacramentals,
so many graces of different devotions
have promises attached to them
that they are to assist the person at the moment of death.
You know, the nine first Fridays,
which we are celebrating also our first Friday today,
has promises of the Sacred Heart
to assist those who are dying.
That if they make the nine,
the nine first Fridays,
they will receive special graces at the moment of death.
Tomorrow, we celebrate the first Saturday.
And Our Lady promised special graces
to those who practice the five first Saturdays.
And, of course, those who wear the scapular
of Our Lady of Mount Carmel.
She promised that they would not suffer the fires of hell,
and that they would assist them,
that they wouldn't, you know,
if they ended up in purgatory,
that Our Lady would come and release them
as the first Saturday,
the third Saturday after their death.
I think Our Lord and Our Lady still keep that promise.
Today, in the middle of all my activities,
someone called me to the bedside of a man
who has been suffering from cancer,
and it looks like he may go to meet his maker today.
And if he were to be so fortunate as to die at midnight,
that would be a great grace.
You know, but obviously, you know,
all these things that the church, you know,
the church has given to us,
and also, you know, by its teaching to admonish us,
and even in the Gospels,
Our Lord is telling us, you know,
be prepared, you know,
death will come like a thief in the night.
You know not the hour or the day,
but we should be prepared.
These are all the things that we need to call to mind
that if we want that day, you know,
on which we are going to die,
we should already be praying that,
God will give us the graces that we will have a happy death,
a provided for death.
Provided for does not mean that you have your will written,
or that you have all these, you know,
your funeral arrangements made.
Provided for means that you're prepared spiritually,
that you spiritually have your bags packed,
and that you have everything in right order with God,
that you have made your peace with God and with your neighbor,
that you have, you're in the state of grace,
you have a good conscience.
That's the best insurance you can have on the day of death,
is to have a good conscience.
And these are the things that, you know,
that we hear so much sometimes,
and it just kind of goes in and out of our ears,
and we kind of think that, well,
someday it's going to come, but do I really believe it?
And then, you know, maybe it's,
maybe it truly is a mercy of God that he sends us,
you know, cancer or some kind of sickness
that eventually lets us know, yes, it's time to get prepared.
It would be the worst kind of thing is that, you know,
someone should drop dead without any opportunity
to prepare themselves to meet God.
The souls that are in purgatory, you know,
if anything they probably would come back,
if they would preach a homily,
would probably be admonishing us all to make use of the time
that we have while we're here,
that we would accept the sufferings that God sends to us,
that we wouldn't complain about this or that thing that,
you know, as St. Paul reminded us, you know,
that I consider the sufferings of this present time
are as nothing compared with the glory to be revealed for us.
But most of us, we find that even little sufferings
that come our way, we find them to be such big,
big challenges.
But the saints realized that, you know,
this world is not the end.
It's only going to be a temporary thing.
And no matter what it may be, it too will come to pass.
And so we have to have that perseverance
and that fidelity that the saints had,
that they will not be discouraged and that suffering,
suffering is not the worst evil that can happen.
Sin is the worst evil.
And that's the thing we need to avoid
and to really be concerned about.
The rest of the things, the physical sufferings,
the trials and tribulations,
they are all part of God's preparing us for eternity.
And we must, you know, every day meditate a little bit
on the last things that we're going to have death,
judgment, heaven or hell.
That will always help us to be, you might say, focused.
You know, sometimes they say about religious life,
oh, you know, you people don't really live
in the real world, you know.
And I'm thinking to myself, well, you know what,
if I'm not living in the real world,
what makes you think you're living
in the real world being out there,
you don't sometimes maybe have the opportunity
to focus on the realities that are really,
judgment, heaven and hell. I, being
in religious life and being maybe a little bit cloistered, maybe
have more opportunity to think of those things. Obviously the people
in Hollywood are not living in the real world. If that's
the real world, you know, their lives really and their
whole, it's one big facade, it's one big illusion.
But when you live in this life of
following Christ and religious life, it's
to help us be in touch with reality. And the reality
is that we all are going to experience death.
We all must be prepared. We all are going to go
through this. Christ himself, as we, you know, hear in the
gospel, he suffered death. He experienced
death. And we're not going to have any advantage
or, you know, special privileges.
We're going to get out of it. We must experience
death as well. And that's our entrance. It's our passage
from this life to the next. And so we must prepare ourselves.
We must make use of the time that we have in this
life, not to waste it. To do those things
which we know that we hear many times, you know,
to pray, to make use of the sacraments,
to meditate.
To read the gospels. To be, have a relationship
with Christ, in other words. And if we do those things,
then, you know, when death comes, it'll be the death
of the saints. The death of the saints is more like
a falling asleep. Although they suffered, they had
trials, yet their deaths were truly
holy and well provided for. Because they made use
of the wisdom of the church.
And so, in this month of November, as we pray
for the poor souls, it may be also good for us to maybe
focus a little bit more on our last days ourselves
and say, you know, if I were to die today, what do I
need to change? What do I need to do differently
than I am doing now?
And I think if we're living every day as if it's our last day, we will
be prepared.
And that's always a good meditation.
Someday we're going to meet God, and we want to be
already thinking about it and preparing ourselves
and doing what we need to do to make that a good
meeting, a joyful meeting, an
embrace of love between God and our souls.
And we want to ask Our Lady in a special way,
who is always the hope,
of the dying,
to come to our assistance.
And as she is also there already assisting the souls in Purgatory,
that Our Lady, I'm sure, wants to spare us even
having to go through Purgatory.
Because Our Lady wants us to truly
be ready and to
pass through from this life
to the next, go straight to Heaven.
That's Her wish for all of Her children.
And we want to,
comply with that and to truly heed our
ladies motherly and maternal
solicitude for us so let us you know
as we have this opportunity every November meditate
on the four last things to pray
that we too will have a good death
whenever that day comes and as I said earlier
today in the saints writings for this day it said
the saints said that we should pray every day that death would come
if we were living like a saint
if we were living with our minds on the right goal
which is eternal life with Christ then yes we would be praying
every day come Lord Jesus come holy death
or as Saint Francis would refer to it as brother death
that it would be truly a sweet
and a truly a welcomed event and even though
it may be a parting from those we love for a short time
it will be truly a time that we will
we will have prepared for and we will look forward to
let us ask our lady in a special way to help us
to do those things we need to do in order to prepare
for that day in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit
Amen
Amen