COMMEMORATION OF ALL FAITHFUL DEPARTED

Saints Matthew and Mark, Barrington, R. I.

Monday, November 3, 2025

 

 

Together, All Saints Day (November 1st) and All Souls Day (November 2nd) direct our attention to a basic Christian teaching explicitly mentioned in the Apostles’ Creed: namely, the Communion of Saints. Here, the word “Communion” means fellowship or community.

 

The Church’s traditional doctrine of the Communion of Saints teaches that the Church exists in three dimensions or states: Militant, Expectant, and Triumphant.

 

The Church Militant consists of all Christians alive on this earth at any given moment in time. The Church Expectant consists of those Christians who have fallen asleep in the Lord, but are still awaiting the Resurrection of the Dead and the Last Judgment. And the Church Triumphant consists of all those Christians who have entered into the fullness of the joy of heaven, where they see God face to face.

 

So, when we speak of the Communion of Saints, the key point is that the Church encompasses all three dimensions: Militant, Expectant, and Triumphant. In Christ, we are in relationship not only with all other Christians now alive on this earth, but also with all those who have gone before us. The Church is a fellowship of the living and the dead.

 

All Saints and All Souls look at the same mystery from different vantage points in time. All Saints Day views the Church from the perspective of eternity, after the end of time, indeed from outside time as we know it. From this viewpoint, we see the Church’s final end, when all are safely gathered into God’s kingdom. All Saints Day thus offers us a glimpse of our future, and the future of all the faithful, in the Church Triumphant.

 

All Souls Day, by contrast, looks at the same mystery from the present moment, from within time. Our departed loved ones have gone out of our sight, but we’re all still waiting in hope for the coming of God’s kingdom—both we in the Church Militant, and the Faithful Departed in the Church Expectant.

 

The Church’s prayer for the Faithful Departed is that they may “rest in peace.” But what does this rest refer to? I think that it refers primarily not to our final destination in heaven, for then we’ll be too busy enjoying the celebration to do much resting, but rather to the intermediate state between this life and the life of the world to come. We pray that the Faithful Departed may rest in peace as they await the resurrection of the dead. Or, as some versions of the prayer put it, that they may “rest in peace and rise in glory.”

 

Think of some of the implications of this prayer. On a few occasions in the course of my priestly ministry—thankfully, very few—I’ve been called upon to bless a house or residence troubled by paranormal activity. In some cases, not all but some, the underlying problem turns out to be what’s called a restless spirit: that is, the soul of a dead person who is neither at rest nor at peace. When that turns out to be the case, the Church’s prescribed course of action is not only to spiritually cleanse the location, but also to pray for the troubled soul’s repose, that it may depart to its appointed place, there to await the day of resurrection.

 

But such cases are by far the exception rather than the rule. Most of the time, we pray for the departed to express our love for them—in the conviction that it’s the one effective thing that we can still do to help them in their continuing journey into the light of God’s presence, and in the hope that others will so pray for us when our time comes.

 

In this life, rest brings healing and wholeness. Ideally, we wake up restored and rejuvenated after a good night's sleep. So much the more, then, with the faithful departed resting in the sleep of peace. God’s Holy Spirit continues and ultimately completes the work, normally begun in this life at baptism, of healing their infirmities and purging away their sins. Then, at the sound of the last trumpet, they will wake up and rise, ready to see God face to face and share in the joy of their eternal inheritance.

 

The All Souls Requiem Eucharist is basically an all-purpose funeral service. We give thanks for the lives of the faithful departed, especially those whom we love but see no longer. We celebrate the Christian hope of resurrection from the dead. The purple color of our vestments signifies not so much penitence as hope for the day of the Lord’s coming. But, most of all, until that day, we pray that the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, may rest in peace. Amen.