November

November.

For me, the months of each year almost have colour and texture, marked by the seasons, the anniversaries and events. As each month comes along I savour its ‘texture’ created by its meaning and feel.

So, here we are almost at the end of November. For me, November is a month of endings and the hint, the suggestion of beginnings. Our academic year ends, the calendar year is drawing to a close, we are on the brink of the holiday season, the cooler weather of late winter and spring is passing into the heat of summer and it is the end of the Church’s liturgical year.

So, I always have a sense of stories ending and new ones not yet begun - in happy times, almost a nostalgia for the year that is passing so quickly and in difficult times the hope that next year will be better.

The November Liturgy
All Saints and the Commemoration of the Faithful Departed

The Liturgy for November echoes these feelings for me. We begin with the feast of All Saints and its sister feast the Commemoration of the Faithful Departed. And of course, not to be outdone, Franciscans have their own celebration of All Saints of the Franciscan Order and the Commemoration of all Deceased Franciscans and their Benefactors.

These are such joyous feasts. They tell us of our own ending and who we are in our deepest truth. All Saints reminds us that our destiny is to rejoice with the community of all creation in the dance of the Trinity. The fulfilment of creation is not destruction, but life abundantly.

This is not escapism from the sometimes grim reality of human existence. We are here and now in the Communion of Saints. Whatever we do now, how we live now, how we allow ourselves, in our secret, hidden hearts to become more and more the face of Christ here and now, changes the whole network of creation in which we live. Heaven begins here. All Saints begins here.

That is why All Souls is inseparable from All Saints. We pray for those who have died. We pray that they will be drawn into the full glory of their destiny. Purgatory seems to be a fairly unpopular subject these days. However, I think Purgatory is an important theological intuition. I don’t see it as a place, as inflicted punishment, as somehow peeking around the door into heaven but not allowed in like some family pet shut out from family festivities.

Purgatory is about growing up. It is about continuing to ‘put on Christ’ which we have not completed before our death. In that moment after death when we see and experience the unveiled love with which God loves us, and has always loved us, we know ourselves. For most of us, that encounter will carry the pain of knowing how distracted our own love has been, how we have compromised our loving, how much forgiving we need to do. That’s the pain of Purgatory – the pain of knowing in our newly recognised soul that we have not yet grown up, we have not yet matured into that steadfast reciprocal love that is Christ’s love in us, for us and always given to us.

In that moment of recognition, I thing there is also joy because God never gives up on us. We now have the chance to learn to love as we were created to love – honestly, tenderly, fiercely, actively, reverently.

So, perhaps the beloved dead are more deeply involved in our lives here and now than we could imagine. In the Communion of Saints they are continuing to mature into Christ by their prayer and influence for us. And somehow, in that hopeful mystery of God, our prayer for them helps them heal and grow.

If there is one thing these two feasts shout out to me, it is that we live in a web of life with all creation in God. This means everything we do and are influences the whole and God has given us to each other and to creation in that web.

Perhaps we need to think of heaven, not as a static place of sugary sweet happiness out there somewhere, rather, just as we grow in our capacity to love as we become mature and less self-centered, so heaven is that unveiled existence where we transform into greater, larger, deeper, richer capacity to love and be in truth because that blindness which has stood in the way has been healed and the greater our capacity the deeper our entry into the mystery of the loving God who holds all things in being.

The Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Two other feasts in November have something to say about all this. The Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary is like the overture to an opera. Here in this small girl-child we have the hint of the great drama we will abide in during December.

For each us, like Mary, from our conception we are chosen and called. Once born into this web of life, we will never, ever cease to be. We will leave our mark upon reality whether we are conscious of this or not.

Christ the King

Finally at the end of November (this year, at any rate) we celebrate the feast of Christ the King. The readings for the feast teach us what Christ’s kingship is. Before Pilate, the powerful secular authority of the Roman occupying force, the gospel has Jesus affirming the heart of who he is. Before his crucifixion he affirms “Yes, I am a king. I was born for this, I came into the world for this: to bear witness to the truth; and all who are on the side of truth listen to my voice.” (Jn. 18:37) Love and truth cost. If it is so for Jesus, why should it be different for us?

Let Endings End

So, with the few days that are left, let us stay with the endings. Perhaps we may find moments to make endings of things that clutter our hearts. We are fortunate that God allows us to constantly “begin again”. If we are able to stay with our own endings and with the endings of the November liturgy, Advent (whether a personal or liturgical Advent) will come upon us with its promise of hope.

Thee God I come from To Thee go. All day long I like a fountain flow, From Thy hand out, Swayed about Motelike In Thy mighty glow.
(G.M. Hopkins)