Comfort in the Communion of Saints

Linking up with Blessed Is She and #BISsisterhood this morning to talk about Communion of Saints.

We're approaching two of my favorite feasts in the church year: All Saints and All Souls (November 1st and 2nd, respectively). 

All Souls is our feast for the dead. This is the day to visit the cemetery, add pictures and mementos to your home altar, and light all the candles!   It is the day we remember those who have passed on, but might not be in heaven just yet. 

All Saints is for everyone who has the joy of heaven! It serves as a catch all for those souls in heaven the Church has not managed to canonize. 

Perhaps one of my favorite church teachings is that of the communion of saints. It means that all souls are still connected, even after death. Those in purgatory still need our love and care, and those in heaven are able to know and love us here on earth. We never stop being family to each other.

We have an obligation to care for each other, even after death. I try to remember this by praying for the most forgotten soul in purgatory. The one who has no one to pray for them, who may have been forgotten for centuries or millennia. That is the one I want to help.

Saints no longer need our prayers to help them in their purification for heaven, but they can help us here on earth. Saints are capable of loving in a way we have forgotten. 

This year is bittersweet now that we have our own saint in heaven. Catholics know that we become saints, and not angels, when we die and are in heaven, and innocent children always go to heaven. Mary Bernadette exists now in perfect form. She may have died a very tiny infant, but she is now in her full soul form.

Through the communion of saints, my daughter and I can know each other. We will not physically touch until the end, but we can meet each other in prayer. She can intercede for me. I like to think she has a bit of a soft spot for her mom.

In this communion, we are never fully separated from each other and we get a glimpse of that closeness we were made to exist within. All of this hard work on earth is meant to have the final goal of getting back to that place of perfect communion with God and each other.

That's a goal I can get behind.