All Souls Homily — Companions at the Table

 

Two disciples walk away from Jerusalem at the end of the worst week of their lives. Everything they had hoped for has been laid in a tomb. They are not walking toward anything; they are walking away, and they are talking, as grieving people do, about what they have lost. And then, Saint Luke tells us, “Jesus himself drew near and walked with them.”

They do not recognize him. Grief does that. It narrows the eyes. But they are not alone, even when they do not know it, and that is the first word the Church speaks to us on this day: we are not alone, and neither are those we have lost.

Today we remember our beloved dead of all ages. The parents and grandparents who taught us to pray. The spouse whose chair is still empty at the table. The child, or the infant who barely drew breath, whose loss rearranged a family’s whole life. The friend taken too young. The priest who baptized us. And those whose names no one living still remembers, but whom God has never forgotten. The Book of Wisdom says it with a confidence that is not sentimental but theological: “The souls of the just are in the hand of God, and no torment shall touch them.”

Life is changed, not ended

In a few minutes we will pray the Preface for the Dead, with words many of us know by heart: “Indeed for your faithful, Lord, life is changed not ended.” Changed, not ended. That is the hinge of this day. Death is real. The Church does not ask us to pretend otherwise, and the tears we bring here are an honest prayer. But death is not the last word, because it was not the last word for Christ. Saint Paul tells the Romans that we were “baptized into his death,” and he draws the conclusion with the logic of faith: “If, then, we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him.”

And if life is changed and not ended, then neither are the bonds of love. The Second Vatican Council taught in Lumen Gentium that the union between us who are still on pilgrimage and those who have fallen asleep in the peace of Christ is in no way broken. On the contrary, the Council says it is strengthened by the sharing of spiritual goods. The love we bore them in this life did not die with them. It has simply taken a new form. We call that form prayer.

This is why the Church has prayed for the dead from her earliest days. It is not a superstition, and it is not a transaction. It is the ordinary work of love, which does not stop caring for someone just because they have passed beyond our sight. We accompany them still. We walk with them, as Christ walked with the two on the Emmaus road, toward the fullness of the light.

Known in the breaking of the bread

Notice where the Emmaus story reaches its climax. Not on the road, but at table. “Stay with us,” they plead, “for it is nearly evening and the day is almost over.” And then: “while he was with them at table, he took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them. With that their eyes were opened and they recognized him.”

Our English word companion comes from the Latin cum panis: the one with whom we share bread. A companion is someone who sits at table with us. And so it is here, at the Holy Table, that our companionship with the dead is most fully realized. When we celebrate the Eucharist we do not gather only with those we can see. Every Eucharistic Prayer reaches beyond the walls of this church to remember “our brothers and sisters who have fallen asleep in the hope of the resurrection.” The altar is where heaven and earth, the living and the dead, the pilgrim Church and the Church at rest, share one bread and one cup. Here the circle is not broken. Here, in Christ, we are still at table together.

That is the deepest meaning of participatio actuosa on a day like this. We do not come merely to watch a rite for the dead. We come to take our place at the table where they too are remembered, and to offer Christ’s own sacrifice for them, joining our love to his.

Hearts burning within us

When the two disciples realized who had been with them, they said to one another, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he spoke to us on the way?” Some of you know that burning. It comes when a hymn at a funeral catches you off guard, or when a familiar scent or a turn of phrase brings someone back to you for an instant. That is not only memory. It is a reminder that love is stronger than death, and that the Lord who walks beside us walks beside them too.

So bring them with you to this altar today. Speak their names in your heart when the priest prays for the dead. Write them in the Book of Remembrance. Pray for them through this month of November. And trust that the God who holds the souls of the just in his hand holds them, and holds you, and will one day gather us all at the table of the Kingdom, where every tear will be wiped away and no one will be missing.

Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May they rest in peace. Amen.