All Souls’ Day Mass
Cathedral of Mary Our Queen
November 2, 2025
“Don’t You Dare Canonize Me!”
For many years, I had the privilege of serving alongside James Cardinal Hickey, who was the Archbishop of Washington from 1980 until 2001. I not only worked with the Cardinal on a daily basis, but I also lived with him, took him parishes for Mass and Confirmation, and sat in on some of his appointments and meetings. Over time, the Cardinal became, not only my boss and mentor, but my friend.
As years passed, I saw a remarkable transformation in Cardinal Hickey. Long before we met, he was already a good and virtuous priest and bishop; but as time went by, he became wiser and holier. He spent more time in prayer. He grew in intimacy with the Lord. He grew in compassion and insight as he faced the challenges of his office.
As Cardinal Hickey grew older and his health began to fail, he sometimes spoke about dying. One day, after we came home from a funeral at which the preacher declared the decedent to be a saint in heaven, the Cardinal said to me, “Don’t you dare canonize me at my funeral! I need prayers and I want people to pray for me.” This was not false humility on his part. The closer he came to the Lord, the more he realized how far he had to go to become fully Christ-like. In his ardent hope for salvation, he sought the prayers of the Church.
The Hope of Purgatory
From time immemorial, the Church has taught us to pray for the dead, and not to take anyone’s salvation, including our own, for granted. It also taught that, after death, a further purification by God exists. This state of being purified after death is called purgatory. It is a state of being cleansed or purified both of sin and the after-effects that sin leaves behind on our souls.
To many the doctrine of purgatory sounds harsh. Some regard it as a remnant of the Middle Ages, others see it as an affront to a merciful God. If anything of sin remains, some ask, couldn’t God just wipe the slate clean? Couldn’t he just say, “Don’t worry about it! I’m okay and you’re okay?”
The truth is that God loves us so much he wants us to be holy, as he is holy. That is why Jesus said that our holiness must ‘surpass that of the scribes and Pharisees.’ Jesus also told us to become ‘perfect as his heavenly Father is perfect.’ He also taught that ‘the pure of heart are blessed, for they shall see God.’ This teaching should not to frighten or discourage us. It should rather be a source of consolation, because God knows, and we know, that we cannot be eternally happy so long as we are hobbled by any trace of sin or its effects. What’s more, the Lord also loves us so much that he refuses to act as if our choices in life don’t matter . . . Think about it. When we love another human being, what they say or do or think matters to us. So too, what we have said or done or thought matters to God. And when our words, deeds, thoughts are unworthy of his love, the Lord offers us every means of being cleansed, in this world and in the next, so that we might ‘shine like stars for all eternity.’
To be sure, we do not know what purgatory will be like. It has been depicted as if it were scarcely different from hell, except that those poor souls in purgatory will someday escape the flames. Perhaps those sobering images are designed to spur us to moral reform but this is something we should do regardless of how purgatory is depicted. The important thing to remember is that the fire of God’s purifying love will burn away the sins that we may bring with us into eternity. Like any process of purification in this life, our purification in the next life may well be a searing experience—but it is searing fire of God’s love that will transform us in quite an absolute way.
Praying for the Dead
Let’s also remember that we do not undergo this purification alone. We are surrounded by the prayers of the saints in heaven and by the prayers of God’s People on earth. Those who precede us in death remain a part of the Church. Yesterday we celebrated all the saints in heaven, a vast array of people from every time and place. Today we turn our attention to those still on their way to heaven, to those “who walk in the dark valley” as Psalm 22 puts it. They too are part of the Church, part of the Communion of Saints. Death has not broken our bonds of friendship with them. We can pray for them and they can (and do) pray for us. We can pray that their final purification will be hastened. They pray for us, that on our earthly journey, we will grow in holiness and be found worthy of heaven.
The Jubilee of Hope
In today’s reading from his Letter to the Romans, St. Paul says: “Hope does not disappoint because the love of God has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.” He goes on to say that our hope for salvation hinges on Christ, who ‘died for us while we were yet sinners,’ while we were as yet ‘at enmity with God.’ The love the Spirit pours into our hearts is the love of the crucified Lord, the Savior who gave his life to redeem us. This is what fills our hearts with hope of salvation. This is the same hope that undergirds the Church’s teaching that God will continue to purify us even after we have died, so much does he want us to with him, and to be like him, in every respect.
As we celebrate All Souls’ Day, let us remember our beloved dead— parents, grandparents, spouses, friends, even our enemies, and let us pray earnestly for the happy repose of their souls. During this Jubilee of Hope, begun by Pope Francis & continued by Pope Leo XIV, let our own hope of salvation be inflamed, confident that Jesus our Savior wants none of us to be lost, confident that we be raised to glory on the last day.
Thus we pray: Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine on them. May they rest in peace. And may their souls and the souls of the faithful departed, rest in peace.