All Saints and Commemoration of the Dead - Year A - November 1 and 2, 2026
Introduction.
November begins with the feast of All Saints, which is immediately followed by the Commemoration of the Dead. It is not strange that these two celebrations come one right after the other because they have something in common: they open us to the beyond and strengthen our faith in the resurrection and in the call to holiness for everyone. In fact, the feast of All Saints is not just the celebration of the “great names” on the calendar. It is the feast of that immense crowd spoken of in Revelation: “a vast multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people, and language” (Rev 7:9). Saint Odilon (961 – 1049), the fifth abbot of Cluny, combined the remembrance of all the deceased with the solemnity of All Saints (November 1), creating an ideal bridge between the Church of saints in Heaven and that of the “saints” in Purgatory. Praying for the deceased does not mean staying stuck in the past. It means maintaining a connection through prayer. It means believing that our prayer can accompany those who have left us. It also means recognizing that the deceased do not disappear from our lives as if they had never existed.
So, let us pray for our loved ones, for the people we have known, for those we have loved, but also for those who need our prayer. In this way, too, we will live the Church as the Communion of Saints.
If we did not believe in life after death, celebrating the feast of the Saints would be pointless, and going to the cemetery merely sentimental. Whom would we be visiting, and why would we light candles or bring flowers?
These two days invite us to meditate with joy and seriousness on the verse from the psalm that says: “Teach us to count our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom” (Ps 89:12). This biblical sentence does not stop at the poetic observation of the Italian poet Giuseppe Ungaretti: “We are like leaves on trees in autumn “because in spring the tree blooms again, but with different leaves. Leaves do not have a second life; they fall and rot. For the leaves, which are us, 'life is not taken away but transformed' (Preface of the Mass for the Deceased).
The important thing is to believe with ever greater firmness in Jesus who said: 'I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever lives and believes in me, even if they die, will live' (John 11:25). At this point a question may naturally arise: 'What do the saints and all the deceased do in paradise?' We can derive the answer from today's first reading. The redeemed adore, they cast their crowns before the throne, they shout: 'Praise, honor, blessing, thanksgiving…'. In them it is realized the true human vocation, which is to be 'praise of the glory of God' (Ephesians 1:14). Their choir is led by Mary who in heaven continues her song of praise: 'My soul magnifies the Lord.' It is in this praise that the saints find their bliss and joy: 'My spirit rejoices in God.' A person is what he or she loves and admires. By loving and praising God, we identify with Him, sharing in His glory and in His very happiness.
In short, the purpose of today's solemnity and the commemoration of all the faithful departed tomorrow, is to make us reflect on the radiant example of the saints and to remember our dead, awakening in us the great desire to be like those who are in heaven: happy to live close to God, in His light, in the great family of God’s friends. Being holy means living close to God, living in His family. And this is the vocation of all of us, strongly emphasized by the Second Vatican Council, and today solemnly presented to our attention.
1) Trust in Love.
On November 1st, the Church's Liturgy makes us celebrate All Saints' Day, and even if it falls on a Sunday, we are given the opportunity to remember all the faithful departed in a big prayer that gathers them all in our thoughts and memories. Today our prayer should turn to the Lord so that He welcomes into His Kingdom of eternal joy and peace those who have left this world and passed into eternity. Our dead: relatives, friends, acquaintances, and the deceased of all times who have no name for us but are well known to God.
Let us pray for the holy souls in purgatory, especially the more abandoned ones and those whose names and existence we don't even know: the dead of all wars and all violence, the dead of the past as well as today: those who have died on the roads, at sea, in hospitals, at home, in small and large cities, shipwreck victims and those from epidemics, and, of course, those who in recent days have left our hearts deeply saddened. Let us commemorate all the dead, without exception, and let us offer a prayer for all of them, so that the Lord may grant them eternal rest and perfect peace.
While it is natural that our thoughts tomorrow will especially go to our dear departed, whom at the moment of parting we entrusted to the love and eternity of the Lord, it is also “natural” that we receive from them the lesson that God’s eternal love keeps in His heart those He loves, after welcoming them with His forgiveness. Our dear departed remind us that it isn’t worth wasting time and effort on ambitions and fleeting things, because everything passes and only love remains.
We must not forget that November 2nd is not just a day that draws our attention to the fleeting and short nature of life, which painfully marks our human journey. It is a day meant for celebrating our greatest hope if we truly believe in the Easter faith in the Risen One. The day dedicated to all the deceased is therefore not a mournful celebration if we consider the omnipotence of the God of Love, who does not leave the dead in their graves because He Himself has conquered death by rising gloriously from His tomb. Christian dying is not just a simple passing of the soul from one state to another, but it brings about an individual encounter with the loving God who saves, giving trust and hope in endless life. As Preface of the Mass for the Dead says: 'Life is not taken from us, but transformed,' through forgiveness, as it happened to Marmeladov, the drunkard described by Dostoevsky in 'Crime and Punishment.' Marmeladov is a worthless man, a drunkard who doesn’t like to work. His behavior ruined his family, and his daughter, Sonia, had to turn to prostitution. This man lives within himself a sharp sense of defeat and guilt. He’s a loser. One day, in the tavern, dead drunk, he ventures into disconnected talks and in some sort of vision talks about the Last Judgment, which I summarize like this: “God first calls, beside Him, those who have led blameless, holy lives. They are people who deserve, at least by human standards, to live alongside God. Then He summons those who have done little good, the drunkards like him and the addicts, those whom we, the self-righteous, dare to call ‘the bad ones.’ ‘Then He will summon us. ‘You too, step forward,’ He will say, step forward, drunkards, step forward weak ones, step forward children of shame!’ And we will all step forward disgracefully and stand before Him. And He will say to us: ‘You are pigs, made in the image of the Beast and with its mark; but come anyway!’ And the wise and sensible people will say: ‘Lord, why do You welcome these men?’ And He will say: ‘The reason I welcome them, self-righteous men, is that none of them thought they were worthy of this.’”
Is this possible, or is it just empty talk typical of drunk people? Not only is it possible, but it happens as it happened to the adulteress and to Mary Magdalene, to Zacchaeus and to Peter: everyone handed their pain over to Christ, considering themselves unworthy, and everyone was forgiven. As Psalm 36 says, the Lord 'is my light and my salvation... he is the defense of my life... To him I cry: have mercy on me. Your face, Lord, I long for... I am sure I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.' because Jesus experienced extreme agony, like many sick people we have seen on their deathbeds, apparently with no hope and because He died as a man, because of man, for man, with man, and in front of man. This faith connects with hope, which - as Paul writes to the Christians in Rome - 'does not disappoint, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us' (Rom 5:5).
2) The Deceased and the Saints, people who live in the truth of Love.
The closeness of dates between All Saints' Day (November 1st) and the Commemoration of the Dead (November 2nd) reminds us of the mysterious truth of eternal life and the bond of fraternity between us and our loved ones who have passed to the other shore.
We go to the cemetery not out of nostalgia, but because we hope with expectation for a future of glory and joy. So, while we pray for our deceased, they reach out to us from heaven with their hands and assure us of an intense and daily closeness, because we too walk steadily toward a life that has no end.
It is with hope that a Christian perceives and accepts earthly death. Faith in the risen Jesus gives him the certainty that dying is not an irreparable defeat, but the dramatic passage to the glorious condition with his Lord. “Whoever comes to me, I will never drive away.” We are not strangers to God, but children, heirs, destined to share in the resurrection of Jesus.
A hymn from the Lauds sings: “And we who kept vigil at night, attentive to the faith of the world, leaning toward the return of Christ, now look to the light.” In the night of death in which everyone sinks, we are given a light that illuminates the intangible depth of our heart, and through faith we can have a religious experience in which the final resurrection is reflected. Christ embraces every moment of our life and makes us understand that in every moment there is an overflow of eternity; every moment connected to Him implies the eternal.
It is to this embrace that the consecrated Virgins in the world entrust themselves, to whom “it is entrusted the task of pointing out the Son of God made man as the eschatological goal to which everything tends, the splendor before which every other light pales, the infinite beauty which alone can fully satisfy the human heart” (St. John Paul II, Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Vita Consecrata, n. 16). The choice of a virginal life is a reminder of the transience of earthly realities and a foretaste of future blessings. It reminds all the faithful of the need to navigate the events of the world always oriented toward the future city and contributes in an exemplary way to highlighting the genuine nature of the true Church, which is characterized by being at once human and divine, visible yet endowed with invisible realities, fervent in action and devoted to contemplation, present in the world yet still a pilgrim.
The spiritual and eschatological significance of virginity is evocatively and profoundly referred to in the very ancient Roman consecration prayer of the Roman Pontifical attributed to Saint Leo the Great: 'You… have reserved for some of your faithful a special gift flowing from the source of your mercy. In the light of eternal wisdom you made them understand that while the value and honor of marriage remained intact, sanctified from the beginning by your blessing, according to your providential plan, must arise virginal women who, while renouncing marriage, aspire to possess in their hearts the reality of its mystery. Thus, you call them to realize, beyond conjugal union, the spousal bond with Christ of which marriage is an image and sign. (n.38).
From virginal consecration flows the specific ecclesial grace that makes the original symbolism of this rite effective. In this way, the gift of prophetic and eschatological virginity gains the value of a ministry in the service of God’s people and places the consecrated persons at the heart of the Church and the world (Vatican II Council, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, n. 42). This public and recognized act of the covenant between Christ and the consecrated virgin proclaims before the world the primacy and fruitfulness of total and perpetual self-giving, with full availability to the demands of charity towards God and neighbor.
Following the example and the witness of these Consecrated Virgins, who live their faith with joy and effort, who live every day in love, for love, out of love, we persevere on the path of holiness to which we are all called. May all the saints, who are so captivated by the beauty of God and His perfect truth that they allow themselves to be transformed by it, intercede for us and help us. For this beauty, truth, and love, they were willing to give up everything, even themselves, and they lived in praise of God and in humble, selfless service to others.
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