All summer, Susanne has grown beautiful flowers for the Oratory and for the Romanian Church across the road. Today there are none after two cold-frost nights, and so it is with humans; here today and gone tomorrow.

Today at the Oratory we are combining our observance of All Saints Day with All Souls Day - always Nov 1 and 2. Essentially, they point to the same thing for Christians. A saint is a sinner who keeps on trying. The officially church-canonized saints have been observed to be extraordinarily successful in their sanctity. We celebrate their witness and learn from them. We recall them for their splendor in the shade of Jesus, the ultimate truth. The rest of all souls just plod along. We presume there are countless unsung heroes as captured by All Saints Day and multitudes of ordinary folk who soldier on faithfully under the banner of Christ's' cross, warts and all. We bring their names to the altar on this day to blend in with all the specific saints commemorated at various times throughout the kalendar year. And, it is good that we do so because all families should try to stay connected.

I received a phone call. 'Why should we pray for those with God? Why not? He is with us here and we go to meet him there. It is one entity.' Thus, intercommunion of the living and the dead, the famous and the ordinary, the ancient churches and the contemporary churches, is our shared action as Christian believers in the family of the communion of saints. Now, this is not just theory for religious individuals. It describes what we are on about in terms of our instant worship and our ideals that struggle with our lifestyles. It's not an easy task. The struggle is what makes the pilgrimage worthwhile, it is what shows us up as faithful catholicks.

This is not the time to defend the ancient ecumenical teaching about how we and the saints touch one another and are joined in the worship of God in heaven, nor our sense that we pray for one another. We are putting into practice our credal confession, namely that we believe in 'the Communion of Saints'. This is not the day to defend saying prayers for the dead and offering the requiem mass on their behalf. God tells us to pray for our loved ones; he never said to quit praying for them just because they die. Life and death are a continuum, an ongoing sanctification of souls. We honor them just as we mention, with Thanksgiving, the names of the valiant military dead on Remembrance Day, (at which our village council has invited me to officiate this year at the corner cenotaphe - with the bagpipe bands and the Canadian Legion.) Christians commemorate the dead to our thinking and we commend them to the mercy of God - which is also the reason Christians always conduct funerals; we must never leave the dead unprayed for. The Church provides anniversary memorials for those we love so the church catholick and orthodox, unlike the secular world remembers them.

The Bible is unclear what we are to make of the afterlife, the abode, state and condition of God's holy ones and the blessed dead. Many differing remarks are made in Holy Scripture but no clear, simple, picture is given there. But the realization of Holy Mother Church is that God is merciful and that He provides refreshment, rest, praise, peace and joy. The details are speculative although tradition arrives at a consensus, which is the practice established here at the Oratory. The ground issue, I think, is that God blesses us from birth unto eternity - forever. 'Christ was born, Christ is risen. Christ will come again.' The Communion of Saints is a seamless continuum. We never give up on the culture of instantaneous prayer, which we should learn from our earliest years and carry on forever. As St. Paul says 'Pray always without ceasing' and it is people in their several estates and causes that we pray for. 'More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of.'

On Thanksgiving Sunday I told you stories of Harvests past and we recalled the recent loss of Fr. Art Rowe whom I often sense around me in our kitchen and elsewhere. I am painfully aware of the loss of Fred Robinson, church musician, friend and patron; I remember how I reciprocated by calming him through callousness by some clerics and I smile to myself about such things. Susanne's dad has left us, her brother William and steady Jake, our lab-rottie companion; there will be more and they could be us! Art's brother and I planted a tree on the boulevard of the site of his death, offered prayers and we visited the homes of those who came to attend Art during his last tragic minutes of life on earth. Those associations made a difference to all of us. All these patrons have left our material realm; their lives have been eclipsed and transformed but none have vanished from our consciences nor from the benevolence of God.

Last Sunday I told you about the full and last rites provided to both a bed-ridden mother and daughter: professed repentant, conditionally baptized with water, faith and the Holy Spirit, chrismated by Holy Unction, confessed and absolved, the viaticum of Holy Communion was received by both. The Blessed Sacrament was administered also to her sister, a former nun and the turning hearts to a Christian way in the home filled with both the apprehension of death and the divine grace of life. I told you a paradoxical phenomenon; one soul prepared to die who became refurbished! She asked me to sing for her so the eight of us rallied around her bed with the sound of the adjacent river in the background and I sang Our Lady's canticle, the Magnificat (to a Gregorian Chant), the Lord is my Shepherd, the Russian Kontakion (Give rest to thy servants and thy saints…) and Abide with me. I phoned during the week; they are all managing quite well and I was warmly urged to visit all of them again next week. So, God the Holy Spirit is moving in that family; the voice of the Gospel will arise in that home for God's eternal Church is growing.

Last February in the middle of the night, a nurse phoned stating that she could not contact any Roman priest. Would I come, as an Old Catholic priest, to perform the Last Rites for a youth, who was fading away from cancer of the liver? It was very touching and I felt helpless. The family did not contact me for nine months and then the phone rang. Could I come to their home in All Soul's week for Matins of the Departed? Seventeen relatives gathered into their living room yesterday. I was hugged on my arrival. They are descendants from, and speak the Mayan dialect, as well as Spanish. The mother had a list ready for me to celebrate their family's names at the Divine Eucharistic Liturgy today. The clergy had trained them well back home! On this day in Guatemala, beautiful flowers adorn shrines, statues and cemeteries. There are community parties where they drink the marvelous coffee like they served to me. Faith can still be much alive surrounded by violence and poverty. Their living room featured a side table adorned with lace, a portrait of their son in his academic gown, a picture of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, some rosary beads and two candles were burning. Children brought candy bars which they wished they could give to their brother. I said several prayers - opening with the Glory be, Our Father and Hail Mary. I read the story of Lazarus and explained it to the kids, the adults nodding approvingly. I sang the Kontakion and recited several prayers. We said a psalm with a responsary easy enough for all to remember. They were glad to receive the Oratory's Chronicle. We had a time of admonishing spiritual values and I encouraged them to attend their Mass regularly. We shall all meet again at three months anniversary. I drove away profoundly thankful for how God is using me in His ministry. All Saints and All Souls was strengthened personally within me. Rest eternal grant unto them O Lord. And may thy light perpetual shine upon them. May they rest in peace. Amen.