In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
Christ, our King.
Thy Kingdom come!
Preparatory prayer (to put me in the presence of God)
Thank you, Lord, for this moment that you allow me to be with you. Thank you for all the things you have given me and continue to give me, especially for the things I have grown accustomed to and take for granted. Thank you for the gift of salvation. I get used to knowing that you come into this world and take all that humanity is, all that I am. You take it to redeem it, you take it to make it new. Even the things that I would like to hide You want to take to make them new, to heal them. Holy Spirit help me to receive Christ more deeply into my life, especially in the darkness that may be in me.
Gospel of the day (to guide your meditation)
From the Holy Gospel according to Mark 15:33-39; 16:1-6
When noon came, the whole region was in darkness until mid-afternoon. And at mid-afternoon Jesus cried out with a loud voice: “Eloí, Eloí, lamá sabaktaní.”. (Which means, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”) Some of those present, when they heard it, said, “Look, he is calling Elijah.” And one ran and soaked a sponge in vinegar, and fastened it to a reed, and gave him to drink, saying, “Let, let, that Elijah may come and let him down.” And Jesus, uttering a loud cry, breathed his last. And the veil of the temple was rent in two, from top to bottom. And the centurion, who stood opposite, when he saw how he had expired, said, “Truly this man was the Son of God.” [After the Sabbath Mary Magdalene, Mary of James, and Salome bought spices to go and embalm Jesus. And very early on the first day of the week, at sunrise, they went to the tomb. And they said to one another, “Who will roll away the stone from the entrance of the tomb for us?” And when they looked, they saw that the stone was rolled away, and that it was very large. And they went into the tomb and saw a young man sitting on the right side, clothed in white. And they were frightened. And he said to them, “Do not be frightened. Are you looking for Jesus the Nazarene, the crucified one? He is not here. He is risen. Look at the place where they laid him.”]
Word of the Lord.
Meditate on what God tells you in the Gospel
Today we celebrate the Faithful Departed. Which in the end is to rejoice with the most successful men and women in history.
The story goes that one day St. Philip Neri was talking to a boy of the nobility. The saint asked the boy what his dream was, what he wanted to be when he grew up. The excited child replied: “Knight of the shire”. “And then” asked Philip. “And then I will be a Count,” answered the boy. “And then” insisted Felipe. “Well... king” said the little boy, hesitating a little. “And then.” The boy did not know what to answer.
We can be like this little boy. We give importance to things that may be good in themselves, but are not the most important. Today's celebration helps us to remember what really matters in our lives. Today we remember that our true success is not only economic, social or intellectual stability. All of these are good only to the extent that they lead us to the true goal: Christ.
Nothing and no one in this world will be able to completely fulfill our innermost desires, and the saints understood this very well. They understood the words of today's Gospel: “Do not be afraid. Are you looking for Jesus the Nazarene, the crucified one? He is not here. He is risen.” They stopped looking for empty tombs and went to look for the Lord.
In which tombs do you seek the Lord? Which are the tombs in which you seek to find your fulfillment without the Risen One?
«Today's Solemnity of All Saints reminds us that we are all called to holiness. The Saints of all times, whom we celebrate together today, are not simply symbols, distant, unreachable human beings. On the contrary, they are people who have lived with their feet on the ground; who have experienced the daily toil of existence with its successes and failures, finding in the Lord the strength to always get up again and continue on the way. From this we can understand that holiness is a goal that cannot be reached by one's own strength alone, but is the fruit of God's grace and of our free response to it. Therefore, holiness is a gift and a call. As God's grace, that is, his gift, it is something we can neither buy nor exchange, but welcome, thus participating in the same divine life through the Holy Spirit who dwells in us from the day of our Baptism. The seed of holiness is precisely Baptism. It is a matter of maturing more and more in the awareness that we are grafted into Christ, since the branch is united to the vine, and therefore we can and must live with Him and in Him as children of God. So holiness is to live in full communion with God, already now, during this earthly pilgrimage.».
(H.H. Francis, Angelus, 1 November 2019).
Dialogue with Christ
This is the most important part of your prayer, prepare yourself to talk with much love with the One who loves you.
Purpose
Propose a personal one. The one that involves the most love in response to the Beloved... or, if you believe that this is what God is asking of you, live what is suggested below.
Today, in a special way, I will pray a mystery of the Rosary for all my deceased relatives.
Farewell
We thank you, Lord, for all your benefits, you who live and reign forever and ever.
Amen.
Christ, our King!
Thy Kingdom come!
Most prudent Virgin, Mary, Mother of the Church.
Pray for us.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
