FROM ALL SAINTS.....TO ALL SOULS...........

The Catholic-Christian Month of November Remembrance proceeds today with the Commemoration of All Souls, and our prayer focus on the Faithful Departed, who have gone before us in the promise and hope of Eternal Life.  Beginning in the early Church with the commemoration of martyrs, by the 10th Century A.D., the Abbot of Cluny established a liturgical feast in his monastery, that spread through the Universal Church, and is now our annual liturgical commemoration of the Holy Souls of our Beloved Dead, as we remember and pray for them, hoping to purge them of the punishment due to their sins.  Catholic-Christian communities of believers gather All Souls envelopes bearing the names of the deceased to be commemorated in each church edifice, or inscribed in a Book of Life, by which the names of the dead are remembered; while others proclaiom litanies of remembrance, or as at Presentation Parish in Sacramento the fiorst Sunday of November, recite the names of Holy Souls who are being commemorated, while a family member or parishioner carries a flower forward forming a bouquet of remembrance in front of the altar.  However you or your parish community celebrates All Souls Day, may it be a time of prayer and remembrance of loved ones and fellow believers with whom we look forward to sharing with the Everlasting Life of God's Kingdom of Life and Love Forever...........May They Rest In Peace,   Fr.  Troy