There is an intrinsic link between All Souls Day, which we celebrate today, and All Saints Day, which we celebrated yesterday. It would be completely wrong, even heretical, to imagine that the saints are the spiritual superheroes, whereas the faithful departed, for whom we pray today, are the ordinary mortals; and that each category, so to speak, has a different end.
When we pray for the faithful departed, we pray that, through the purifying action of divine grace, those for whom we pray will be made ready to meet God face to face in the beatific vision so that, at the final resurrection of believers, they may share the life of the saints. Those we celebrate as saints on 1st November are those who have already been brought, by the same grace, to Christian fulfilment; today, we are praying for the same end for all the faithful who have passed from this life.
There is a very ancient tradition of Christians praying for the departed; and around the tenth century this was formalised in the establishment of a particular day in the calendar upon which prayer would be offered for all the faithful departed. For the next few hundred years, this date varied from place to place, and at various times, but by the sixteenth century, it became settled on 2nd November.
We know that, whilst human nature is fundamentally good, created by God as it is, it is nevertheless marred by sin. We know, too, that whilst we can repent of sin during our Christian pilgrimage through this life, our repentance can never be perfect. This means that, when we die, there are always going to be residues of sin in us; we know that we are not perfect and therefore not ready to meet God face to face at the hour of our death. So we continue to need the cleansing, purifying grace of God to purge away our sins so that we can be made ready to meet him in the eternal vision of the blessed. We pray on All Souls Day that all the departed faithful are brought to the same end as that already enjoyed by those we venerate as saints.
The most perfect and powerful prayer of intercession we can offer is the holy Mass because here, the sacrifice of Jesus is made present through the action of the Holy Spirit and at the hands of the priest. Jesus' sacrifice, his offering of himself for the sins of the world, is the only perfect act of intercession and offering to God the Father that has ever been made. So when we offer Mass on All Souls Day for all the faithful departed, we are doing here on earth the very most we can do for them. We ask God to cleanse them of all that keeps them from the full sharing in the divine life that he has in store for them; and we ask God to make them perfectly one with all the saints in the eternal vision of the blessed.
