Monthly Prayer: November 2024

This reflection on the Holy Souls has been written by Fr Ryan Black, Vicar Episcopal for Youth (Diocese of Paisley) and Curate at St Mirin's Cathedral, Paisley

Whenever we gather at the Funeral of a loved one, we pray for the happy eternal rest of their soul. We can only do so because we are mindful with the Church of the promises God has made in the Old and New Testaments. 

Through the prophet Isaiah, God promised the chosen people that one day, He would destroy death for ever. With our Christian faith, we see that promise fulfilled in Jesus, the Son of God, who gave His life on the Cross that He might rise again.  

Having witnessed those events in Jerusalem, the Lord’s beloved disciple John reflected upon their significance. In contemplation, John came to recognise that through Baptism, we become children of God in this life and, more than that, we will be like God in the next life, because we shall see Him as He really is. 

With these promises in mind, in November, the Church turns her attention to those who have gone before us. On the first day of the month, we give glory and thanks to God for the communion of saints, those men, women and children who have already gone to Heaven. For the rest of the month, we storm Heaven with our prayers for those who have died but have not yet gone to Heaven: the holy souls in purgatory. 

We hope and pray one day that we will be members of the communion of saints, but we recognise too our weakness, our faults and failings. Nothing imperfect may enter Heaven, and God in His mercy gives us the gift of purgatory so that the just might be purged of any impurities and so enter into glory. 

So let us pray this November for the happy eternal rest of the holy souls in purgatory, that any sin that might have clung to them in this life will be wiped clean now, so that they will one day be united with God in Heaven.