The glorious colours of early autumn’s fruitfulness now give way to muted tones as the last of the leaves fall from the trees, leaving the bare branches stretching heavenwards like arms lifted in supplication. The wind blows colder and the dark nights grow longer.
Along with giving us a winter feel, November is a month that evokes memories. All Saints and All Soul’s Day each, in their own unique way, call us to remember those who have gone before us. These include saints we have come to know and love since childhood, along with many others we have met along life’s path who have gone to God, parents, family members, neighbours and friends. We also remember victims of war, conflict, violence and injustice.
After school on All Soul’s Day, in times gone by, many of us would troop to the Church to offer the prescribed prayers for the release of souls from Purgatory. We would begin by praying for family members and neighbours who had died in the past year and then it was broadened out to include the most forgotten, the greatest sinners and those who had no one to pray for them. As the chill of the day seeped deeper into our bones, the pull to go home to the warmth of the fire was fierce.
Yet, we kept going till fear of the dark sent us scurrying home! This custom has almost disappeared and has been replaced by Parish Cemetery Day. Graves get tidied, head stones cleaned, and Mass is offered with families clustered around the family plot.
A memory etched on my heart is of Mass being offered in a small impoverished Christian colony in rural Sindh, Pakistan, on a very hot, sultry All Souls Day with dust blowing into our faces. The graves were only simple earth raised mounds with a handmade Cross their only marker.
What stunned me was the way the little children, who had been given the great luxury of a few hard-boiled sweets to honour the day, ran to place them on the graves of their departed little brothers and sisters, while adults showered scented roses on them. This is a sacrifice that only love can make.
On any given day in summer in Pakistan, when temperatures are soaring into the high 30s or 40s and you think you are going to die by just melting away, the inscription written in Urdu and English on the pillars of the local Muslim Cemetery is bound to stop you in your tracks.
“As you are so once were we
As we are so shall you be.”
Inviting us to ponder why we are here and where we are going, in one simple sentence.
Sr Roberta Ryan
First published in the November issue of the Far East. Please subscribe and support our missionaries. See: https://columbans.ie/far-east-magazine/
