Feast of All Souls

(Warning: This post may make you cry).

Tonight for MDiv formation we're having special Mass. We've been asked to bring a memento of someone close to us and an inspiration of faith who passed away, as well as a sign or token of a saint we feel a close connection with (recalling yesterday's Feast of All Saints). These, I imagine, will be placed near the altar during the offertory or something to that effect.

I thought for a while about this - and decided I'm going to bring the little prayer card & photo from the funeral for my friend's infant son who passed away three days after he was born this past September. At first, I thought - "well, I never actually knew him. I never met him while he was alive." Then also, I thought - "how is this person an inspiration of faith?" Does he meet the criteria for the assignment?"

Yes, I think he does.

The second reading from Mass yesterday was from 1 John:

1 Jn 3:1-3
Beloved:
See what love the Father has bestowed on us
that we may be called the children of God. Yet so we are.
The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.
Beloved, we are God’s children now;
what we shall be has not yet been revealed.
We do know that when it is revealed we shall be like him,
for we shall see him as he is.
Everyone who has this hope based on him makes himself pure, as he is pure.

In baptism, this infant was made a child of God. Because he did not have enough time on this earth to do much else, it struck me that his whole identity can be summed up in his baptism. He is a child of God! It seems the rest of us spend our lives trying to establish our identity, figure out who we are. This little infant - reminds us that our identity is not something we "find" - As if we could go off and "find" ourselves. It is something that is given to us. We are children of God! How often do we forget this! This child's short little life - manifested to me and to our whole community that we are first and foremost the object of the Father's love, and that it is in this love we find who we truly are.

That being said, I noticed in a renewed way how profoundly baptismal funerals are. If you look at the funeral rites of the Church, they are constantly recalling that "in baptism, [the person] died with Christ," etc. This was so evident to me during the sprinkling rite in Mass. I will never forget how the priest who baptized him two days earlier then used the same tiny little white shell which was used to pour water on his head at his baptism to sprinkle holy water on his little white coffin.

Talking with a friend at the funeral, we remarked that this little boy was a small "s" saint- Afterall, he had been baptized the day after he was born, and being so little, he didn't have time to get in much trouble. At the wake before his funeral, it was a very emotional and touching moment for me kneeling and praying by his open casket, asking for him to pray to Jesus for me. I told him that because he didn't have much time to do anything here on earth, he had to make up for it in heaven! Needless to say, I gave him a lot of work to do, many intentions to pray for!

It seems to me that this little boy, though he will never be canonized, fulfills both requirements for this assignment.

"Eternal rest grant unto them O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May the souls of all the faithful departed through the mercy of God rest in peace. Amen."