On the Commemoration of All Souls' Day: "OH WOW. OH WOW. OH WOW.

This had to be done. Even now, he had a stern, still handsome profile, the profile of an absolutist, a romantic. His breath indicated an arduous journey, some steep path, altitude.

He seemed to be climbing.

But with that will, that work ethic, that strength, there was also sweet Steve’s capacity for wonderment, the artist’s belief in the ideal, the still more beautiful later.

Steve’s final words, hours earlier, were monosyllables, repeated three times.

Before embarking, he’d looked at his sister Patty, then for a long time at his children, then at his life’s partner, Laurene, and then over their shoulders past them.

Steve’s final words were:

OH WOW. OH WOW. OH WOW.

From Steve Job's sister's eulogy for him.

I simply love this and can't read it enough. The whole piece is a tender, loving image that adds wonderful depth to the public persona. Her absolute honesty about his last words made me cry (but you knew that already, didn't you?).

It certainly seems like a fitting memory for today, when we pray for all souls.

Dia de Los Muertos (Day of the Dead)

The best known All Souls’ Day observances in the United States come from Mexican immigrants. Mexico has a vibrant celebration, cleaning graves and building altars on them, bringing favorite foods or trinkets for the deceased, sugar skulls, and marigolds, toys for children, alcohol for adults. Families will spend time praying and reminiscing.

These are often carried out from Halloween through All Souls' Day.

Ray Bradbury had a real love for the purpose of Day of the Dead in Mexico. He wrote about it most notably in his children’s book The Halloween Tree.

A family sits beside a loved one's decorated grave at the cemetery in Xoxocotlán, Mexico.
A tequila bottle, photograph, flowers, and candles are on the grave. (via iStock)

For now they knew why the town was empty.

Because the graveyard was full.

By every grave was a woman kneeling to place gardenias or azaleas or marigolds in a frame upon the stone.

By every grave knelt a daughter who was lighting a new candle or lighting a candle that had just blown out.

By every grave was a quiet boy with bright brown eyes, and in one hand a small papier-mâché funeral parade glued to a shingle and in the other a papier-mâché skeleton head which rattled with rice or nuts inside. ...

“Mexican Halloweens are better than ours!”

For on every grave were plates of cookies shaped like funeral priests or skeletons or ghosts, waiting to be nibbled by—living people? or by ghosts that might come along toward dawn, hungry and forlorn? No one knew. No one said. ...

And each boy beside the graveyard, next to his sister and mother, put down the miniature funeral on the grave. And they could see the tiny candy person inside the tiny wooden coffin placed before a tiny altat with tiny candles. ... And on the altar was a photograph of the person in the coffin, a real person once; remembered now.

“Better, and still better,” whispered Ralph. ...

“Oh, strange funny strange,” whispered Tom

“What?” said Ralph at his elbow.

“Up in Illinois, we’ve forgotten what it’s all about. I mean the dead, up in our town, tonight, heck, they’re forgotten. Nobody remembers. Nobody cares. Nobody goes to sit and talk to them. Boy, that’s lonely. That’s really sad. But here—why, shucks. It’s both happy and sad. It’s all firecrackers and skeleton toys down here in the plaza and up in that graveyard now are all the Mexican dead folks with the families visiting and flowers and candles and singing and candy. I mean it’s almost like Thanksgiving, huh? And everyone set down to dinner, but only half the people able to eat, but that’s no mind, they’re there. It’s like holding hands at a séance with your friends, but some of the friends gone. ...”

Except the Catholic Church all over the world, of course. We remember and we pray.

For more on the Day of the Dead check Wikipedia.

The offering, Saturnino Herran

The Offering (1913) exemplifies Mexican modernism with its allegorical allusion to life’s journey. It displays a punt boat in a canal filled with zempasúchitl flowers (a marigold that is traditionally associated with death). Featured are a baby, a youthful man, and an elderly man offering the flowers for the dead. This is a reference to ofrenda, a tradition deeply connected to Mexico's Dia de los Muertos, a celebration of ancestry that is said to connect the living to the dead. Each character is represents a different stage of life, but they are all following the same end destination and respecting their course.

Wikipedia

Commemoration of All Souls

Today is a feast day!

The Day of the Dead, William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825-1905)

Today we dedicate our prayers in suffrage for the souls in purgatory, still being purified of the remains of sin. Our ties with deceased relatives and friends do not end with their death. Priests can celebrate Mass three times on this day for their benefit, and all the faithful can gain special indulgences to expedite their entrance into heaven.

In Conversation with God, Vol. 7

Here is the translation of the beautiful, yet mournful music for the day which I heard at Pray As You Go a few years ago. It touched my heart and made me contemplate more deeply the mysteries of faith, life, and death.

Free the souls of all the faithful departed.
Free them from the pains of hell.
Free them from the deep pit.
Free them from the lion's mouth.
Make them pass from death to life.

==========

As I listen, I may want to pray too for the people I know who have died or perhaps to contemplate in these moments the ultimate hope that God offers me of freedom from all things that threaten and trouble me: the promise God makes me of eternal life.

This dovetailed with the reading from today that touched my heart most, surprisingly, to me, from Wisdom. Reading it line by line, I felt that ache of missing those I love, but the surety that God offers for the faithful departed.

Wis 3:1-9

The souls of the just are in the hand of God,
and no torment shall touch them.

They seemed, in the view of the foolish, to be dead;
and their passing away was thought an affliction
and their going forth from us, utter destruction.

But they are in peace.
For if before men, indeed, they be punished,
yet is their hope full of immortality;
chastised a little, they shall be greatly blessed,
because God tried them
and found them worthy of himself.

As gold in the furnace, he proved them,
and as sacrificial offerings he took them to himself.
In the time of their visitation they shall shine,
and shall dart about as sparks through stubble;
they shall judge nations and rule over peoples,
and the LORD shall be their King forever.

Those who trust in him shall understand truth,
and the faithful shall abide with him in love:
because grace and mercy are with his holy ones,
and his care is with his elect.

I think today of my beloved dead. I love them and I miss them. Certainly, I pray for them to be happy and joyful in Heaven. And I long to see God's face ... which is a surprising longing for me to be experiencing. But one which I accept gratefully.

• Our two unborn children 
• Dad
• GG
• Raymond
• Thelma
• Grandmama
• Deedah
• Tom's father
• Tom's mother
• Mrs. Ford
• Robin Ford
• Jeanmarie
• Sydney
• Matthew
  
• Ivar
  
• Dorsey
• Dorsey's mother
• Carole
• Heath
• Phyllis
• Alberta
• Aunt Laura
• Uncle Adolph
• Mark (Tom's cousin)
• Harry Steven
• Johnny Falcon
• Maggie Garcia
• Sarah Arnold
• Gregg Margarite
• Phyllis
• Jack
• Diane
• June
• Reisha
• Marshall
• Kathy
• Diana
• Diane and David Dozier
  
• Aunt Joan 
• Aunt CB
• Jenny Colvin
  
• Ted Walch
• John Michael Davis
• Aunt Beverly
• Annabelle Catterall
  
• Don Edinburgh

Rest Eternal Grant Them, Lord!
Take we up the touching burden of November plaints,
Pleading for the Holy Souls, God’s yet uncrowned Saints.
Still unpaid to our departed is the debt we owe;
Still unransomed, some are pining, sore oppressed with woe.
Friends we loved and vowed to cherish call us in their need:
Prove we now our love was real, true in word and deed.
“Rest eternal grant them, Lord!” full often let us pray—
“Requiem æternam dona eis, Domine!”

Here is a litany for the souls in Purgatory.

You can read more about All Souls' Day here. For those with any questions about Purgatory I posted this extremely basic explanation a while back.

Catholic Culture explains indulgences and practices that Catholics can do during the month of November for the Poor Souls in Purgatory.