The month of November starts with the celebration of All Saints (November 1st) and All Souls Day, that is the commemoration of All the Late Faithful (November 2nd).
The All Saints Day is a reminder of the truth of universal vocation to holiness. Each believer, regardless of the specific path of life: marriage, priesthood or consecrated life, is called to holiness. As the Creator invokes all to the holiness, He helps every man with His grace. Every man received the gift of salvation because Jesus Christ offered His sacrifice for all people. However, it is up to a man to accept and in what degree the gift of holiness that God offers to us. The truth is very well depicted in the Adam Mickiewicz’s aphorism: “God Himself can destroy the world and create it for the second time, but without our help, He cannot save us.”
On that day, at 11 a.m. a holy Mass was celebrated by Fr. Robert Ptak at the John Paul II Foundation’s Chapel. In the afternoon, the faithful traditionally went to cemeteries to take participate in the service and pray for those who have gone to eternity and in purgatory are waiting for the final meeting with the Lord in heaven. That afternoon, the All Souls Day and the upcoming November’s days provide a very good opportunity to look at graves and to contemplate our own passing, our own death, and the dimension of our own eternity and to take into our heart the verses from Ernest Bryll’s poem:
“And we may have been dead, and we feel quite healthy On that All Souls Day’s cemetery, between the graves of dead. Maybe here, for a few minutes, enough before the candle flashes and fades out We have hope, love, faith, maybe here is the homeland” Scholarship recipients individually or in small groups went on these days to cemeteries in Lublin to pray for the dead, especially for the loved ones resting in the cemeteries in their family countries.
Fr. Jan Strzałka
