ALL  SOUL’S  DAY:

GRAY  GRANITE  GRAVESTONES

INTRODUCTION

Today is All Souls Day.

The title of my homily is, “All Soul’s Day: Gray Granite Gravestones.”

“Gray Granit Gravestones”  I like the sound of those words - obviously.

We see gravestones and graveyards  all the time as we go up and down the roads of life.  What thoughts and feelings do they trigger? And sometimes we unearth our thoughts - when going by  gray  graves.

I would assume by having this feast every year - here on November 2^nd - the Church wants us to look under some stones and see what this feast means to us.

I was wondering how many people will drop into graveyards today: All Soul’s Day. How many people will travel to a gray granite grave stone with family names carved into it - and pause to pray - pause to remember.

I would assume the church wants us to do this.

I would assume for starters grave yards should trigger gratitude.  I love Groucho Marx’s old line, “If your parents didn’t have any kids, chances are you  won’t either.”

Well, we’re here and our parents had us and we are grateful - thankful for the gift of life.  And if we’re at a family plot or old town cemetery - there will be other family members buried there - to thank and think about.

A FEW OBSERVATIONS ABOUT GRAVEYARDS

Stone is better than wood.  How many Western movies have wooden cross markers for where someone is buried?  Stone is better than wood.  Those wooden markers - crosses - etc. are not going to last like stone lasts. So too wooden crosses along highways.

More and more people are being cremated and their remains are kept at home or are simply dropped into the ocean or a  bay - without  a marker. No comment - except the comment - that a graveyard with a granite stone is different than the ocean - and does different to our psyche and memory.

Next, we live at great distances from where some of our ancestors are buried.

If possible get to their graves - or close your eyes - and go there in spirit.

Some people have portable grave yards.  Some use a prayer book and have in that prayer book the significant death cards of a lifetime. And that prayer book gets fatter with time and aging.

I like the modern practice of flyers with pictures - handed out in funeral parlors.  Some give a brief photo-biographical look-see of a deceased person.  I have a lot of them in zip lock  bag. They are  from funerals I did in the parish I just left in Annapolis Maryland.

I would suggest getting a neat box to keep death cards and flyers in and go through saved pictures from that cardboard box casket or zip lock bag or those cloth shopping bags. Do that from time to time - like today - alone or at good moments - like granny baby sitting and show them to kids and grandkids. Who’s who?  Who has been who in our life?

I believe the theology of Easter and the Resurrection has certainly been developed since F.X. Durwell’s book on The Resurrection came out in 1960.  I grew up with morning Mass in our church  in Brooklyn with every Mass in black vestments  - and they had the same readings and prayers every time. I was an altar boy all through those years and saw the dramatic changes in the liturgy and morning Mass from those days till today.

We express our faith - our hope - and our beliefs in Christ in a much more glorious and a colorful  way today.  Lent used to move us from Ash Wednesday to Good Friday.  Now Lent moves us Holy Week - to Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter - and keeps on moving us to Ascension,  then the Descent of the Holy Spirit and on and on and onwards.

CONCLUSION   

A tiny significant change was calling today, “All Souls Day” - not “Poor Souls Day”  - because all those who die  in Christ we hope and believe are rich and cleansed - and given a fatted goat to eat and celebrate in heaven with family and friends and all those who have gone before us.