HOMILY FOR FEAST OF ALL SOULS: 2ND NOV. 2025

Fr Billy Swan

Dear friends. One of the strongest features of the Irish Catholic tradition is praying for and remembering the dead. It is the one time that still draws us all together. On Patron Day, on anniversaries and for today's feast of ‘All Souls’, we make a special effort to recall those who have gone home before us to God. We decorate their graves, book their anniversary Mass and gather as families to share, tell stories and keep their memory alive. In my homily today I would like to reflect with you on our ongoing connection with the dead through faith and explore how this connection is something to be celebrated by Christians everywhere. I do so in the light of today’s beautiful first reading where Isaiah declares that God ‘will destroy death forever’ and the Gospel where Jesus shows that divine power by raising a young man from the dead.

In the creation accounts in the Book of Genesis, we are told basic things: first that God made us in his own image and likeness. If this is true then you and I are made in the image and likeness of God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. God is one with three persons who know each other and are open to each other in love. Since we are made in the image of God, it means that the human person is made with this same openness to others. To be human is to be in relationship with others. To be human does not mean to be closed off as an island of isolation.

Also from the account of creation in the Bible, we are told that ‘it is not good for man to be alone’. So God made us to be together, not to use each other, but to delight in the presence of the other as companions and friends. In the first reading today, we have the image of the banquet that the Lord of hosts will prepare for all peoples. It is a very rich image with God as host seated at table with all peoples sharing a meal of good food and fine wines. And it is in this togetherness with God and with one another than true joy is found. This is the joy for which we are made.

Our faith tells us that this openness to others and this togetherness is so strong that not even death can break it. The relationships we have with those we love are not destroyed by death but continue, albeit in a different way. Neither does death destroy the sense of togetherness for which we are made. In the first reading the people who gather at the same banquet with us in the company of God are not just the living but the dead who are alive in Him. For this reason in the creed of every Mass we stand and say ‘I believe in the communion of saints’. This is what we mean every time we say the creed: that we are still open and present to our loved ones who have died and they are open and present to us. In the words of St John Chrysostom: ‘Our loved ones who have died are no further away from us than God and God is very near’.

This closeness to the dead and togetherness with the dead is the fabric of our faith. Many times I have been with families who gather around the bed of a loved one who is dying. I have seen many examples where the dying show signs of being connected to the people who have gone before them and being open to the great communion of saints who wait to receive them and welcome them home to God. Many others testify to this too. In a book called ‘Heading for the Light: 10 things that happen when you die’, Colum Keane has put together remarkable stories from people that confirm the power of the human soul being connected to others, in this life and the next.

We totally underestimate the power of all of this. When we become self-absorbed, we cut ourselves off from a vital source of life that flows through our friendships that we enjoy with both the living and the dead. But when we are open to others in this world and to the communion of saints in the world to come, then we are nourished and are never alone. The old Celtic tradition describes the boundary that separates us from the next world as but ‘a narrow stream’.

Never underestimate the power of openness to others and the togetherness that not even death can destroy. If you have hurt someone who has died, it is not too late to ask forgiveness. If someone has hurt you, tell them of your pain. If you miss and love someone who has died, tell them. You are not talking into an empty space. Love passes into prayer and prayer leads us to God. Openness to each other and being together is only possible in God. He is the one who makes love possible for He is love. And it is this love that rose from the dead on Easter Sunday and that lives still. He made us to be open and He wants us to enjoy this togetherness with him for all eternity. This is why we are here at the Eucharist where it all comes together. Joined with each other and with God in the communion of saints, we gather at this banquet table on the feast of All Souls. Thank God for the gift of our faith.