23/11/22 22:26 Filed in:
Catechesis | Faith SharingHalloween All Saints and All Souls_mixdown
Wed, Nov 23, 2022 8:37PM 25:49
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
saints, people, saintly, church, life, important, day, souls, john, halloween, admired, john paul, hollows,
god, faith, hell, purgatory, second vatican council, remember, humbleness
00:00
We hear in the Gospel of Luke, that they were saying, "The Lord has risen indeed has has appeared to
Simon, than they told what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in
the breaking of the bread." Come join us today, on the way with DJ.
00:24
Well, good afternoon, everyone. This Halloween day. I am recording this on Halloween. I am getting
ready to release this tomorrow, which is the solemnity of All Saints. So I wanted to kind of talk a little
bit today about the three days; about Halloween, All Saints Day and All Souls Day.
00:50
And I think as kids we all you know, have good memories, great memories for my sake of Halloween
Day. Growing up in the city, we used to go and trick or treat multiple times a day, even if it was a
weekday and a school day. So what we would do is, since I lived only three blocks from the school is I
would go and I would trick or treat on the way home from school at lunchtime, because we came
home for lunch. And then I'd trick or treat on the way back. And then as we were leaving school, we
would trick or treat, stop at home, drop off our candy that we had hauled in from the day, and then
basically go out from 3:30 all the way about till about nine o'clock at night. The memories that I have
of those times are going to many, many different houses, many, many different neighborhoods, were
really such such a wonderful part of my childhood. Now as I got older, when I was probably about 13
or 14 years old, you know trick or treating kind of becomes kind of like a little kid thing to do. And so
what I would do is I would basically stay at home and actually hand out candy. And I used to enjoy
watching all the little kids with their costumes and the excitement of them coming up to the door and
asking and getting some candy as they went there as they went doing their trick or treating. So it was
kind of a good memory. The thing that though that is kind of interesting about this whole scenario, or
this whole situation was that I certainly remember Halloween, October 31.
02:37
But then when we moved into November 1 and November 2, growing up as a kid, I really did not
remember All Saints Day and All Souls Day. As a matter of fact, I don't even think as a family that we
actually went to church on All Saints Day. Because it's always been a holy day of obligation in as far
actually went to church on All Saints Day. Because it's always been a holy day of obligation in as far
as I can remember. And so not going to church, kind of you know, was something that I just really
didn't even think of. Now, when I was in the high school seminary, obviously, it was at that time that
we did start treating All Saints Day as a holy day of obligation. So it wasn't until I was an adult that All
Saints and All Souls were kind of really put in integrated into the mix of how important these days
are.
03:31
I was with our schoolchildren the other day and we were talking about how these three days were
kind of connected. And I said it kind of explained to them and I'd like to explain to you why these days
are connected to each other. So Halloween, basically is a day when we talk about the church
calendar. It is All Hallows Eve and the way I explained it to the kids and the way I'd like to explain to
you today is that it's important to remember that the church's day, the calendar day, the liturgical
day actually begins on the evening of the previous day. So when we say that there is All Hallows Eve,
we are basically saying that it is the eve of the hollows or the eve of the saints. The Hallows or
however you'd like to pronounce it, how the hollows are the people that we revere, the people that
we feel that are important and for us as Catholics, those are the saints, those are the canonized
saints when it comes to the church.
04:41
And so we move then in the morning to All Saints Day and it is a holy day of obligation where we are,
as Catholics asked to attend mass. it is an actual obligatory day where we remember those hollows,
those people who were important In the life of the church, all the way from the beginning of the
church's history all the way until this modern day. Now, the after the hollows day or after the All
Saints Day, then we move into the All Souls Day.
05:17
And All Souls in my ministry now is become probably more important or more meaningful, because I
do spend a vast majority of my time ministering to people who are grieving, ministering to people
who are bereaved, ministering to people who have experienced a death in their family. And so that
first All Souls Day for them is a day that they can remember their loved one in a very, very special
way. So, that's kind of the calendar or the liturgical calendar part of all of this.
05:57
So I'd like to talk a little bit about saints to begin to kind of talk about All Saints Day or All Hallows
Day. So saints have always played a very important role in my life. I remember, from the earliest
times that when I was studying for confirmation, when I was in preparation for confirmation as a ,
Seventh grader, how important it was to choose a saint's name. And when we were asked to actually
come up with a name, for the saints that we were going to choose, it was kind of a no brainer. For me,
it was something that I was going to choose the name, John. And the reason why I chose the name
John for a couple things. First of all, my dad's name was John. And so I greatly admired my father; my
father was a convert, he converted from being a Southern Baptist, to being a Catholic in order to
marry my mother. And so what he did is he actually converted and, so I admired my dad, because he
was the one that was kind of saying to us on a Sunday, you know, that we have to go to church, that
we have to attend church this day. And so it's important to kind of remember him. And my dad was
also very patient, man, very quiet man. But he worked hard, and he worked hard to provide for his
family. And so in kind of in honor of him, it was something that I thought that I could do that I would
choose John as a confirmation name in honor of him. But the other main reason why I chose John, and
this kind of goes a little bit more to the religious or the faith, part of it, is that I was always intrigued
by St. John, the apostle. St. John the Apostle, was someone who, you know, in the gospels, it does say,
you know, that is the disciple whom Jesus loved. And nowhere else does it say anything about
anything of the other disciples, you know, that disciple is someone that he loved, and that he loved
John more than he loved anyone else, or more than he loved Peter, or more than he loved Andrew or
any of the other apostles. But it was something that scripture really kind of hit me. And it also St. John
was also the only apostle that had the courage to go and sit at the foot of the cross as Jesus was
being crucified. And so I remember that exchange that goes in the Gospel passage where, you know,
Jesus says to Mary, you know, a Woman, behold your son, and he goes, and he says to John, woman,
or man, behold your mother. You know, and so he was actually entrusting the care of Mary to St. John.
08:53
And Mary has always been an important part of my life.
08:58
As far as devotion as far as consecration, I've done a consecration to Mary, just recently, and so it is
for Mary is very important to me and the care of her by St. John was also very important as well. So
that's why St. John has always been an important Saint when it comes to my life.
09:20
Now, in recent years, there have been three people that I greatly admire that have recently become
canonized saints in the church. The first was Pope John the 23rd. And I remember reading about Pope
John the 23rd, you know, not so much about Vatican, about the Second Vatican Council. But some of
the things that he used to do as Pope and he was someone that was a very, very humble man,
someone that, you know, wasn't so caught up in the importance of the Vatican and of the high church
and all those things. And I remember a story being told about him one time about how he would turn
had to sneak out of the Vatican at various times to just kind of just go and be a priest and be
someone who is just like the normal, everyday person that you might meet. And he would go, and he
would hear confessions of just everyday people. And I greatly admired that. Because it shows me
humility, a sense of humility, a sense of humbleness about him, that a lot of people that are in
positions of power, or positions of prominence today, don't really show. And so Pope John the 23rd.
And then, you know, was somebody that was important to me. And then, you know, when I started
reading the documents of the of the Second Vatican Council, and how it was finished up by Paul, the
sixth, you know, how important those documents were, and how it did breathe new life into the
church at that particular time. And so Pope John, the 23rd, was somebody that was very important to
me.
10:56
And then my second, or my favorite St. Next at St. John probably, is St. John Paul, the second, I had an
opportunity, not just because, you know, of my Polish tradition, but also when I was in the seminary, I
was elected the president of my senior class, the year that Pope John the Pope, John, Paul, the second
came to Chicago. And so I was actually honored to meet him, and actually to shake his hand and to
be with him when he was with all the seminarians, that day. I was able to give the gift from our school
to him. And so St. John Paul, the second was somebody that has really played an important role in my
life. Some of the that I followed some of them that I was able to see at the beginning of his pontificate
when he was a very young man, and just recently elected Pope, and all those different types of
things. And then I was able also to be with St. John Paul the Second, at the end of his pontificate,
when I took a group of students in 2002, to Toronto, to the World Youth Day, and to kind of see how
his life had kind of gone from, you know, this vibrant and rigorous man until, you know, , this man
who had aged and the man who had, you know, had survived an assassination and who had, you
know, aged with disease and all the other things that happened to us as we age. And so it was, it was,
it was very interesting to, to see him and to kind of be with him, at the beginning of his pontificate,
and then at the end, as well. So I really do think that Pope John Paul, the second was the great, I hope
that one day he is recognized as a doctor of the church and so on. So he was somebody that was very
important to me, as well.
12:55
And then the last person was Mother Teresa, Mother Teresa of Calcutta. The work that she did with
the poor and the, and the people and the people that she ministered to, was something that I greatly
admired. And then as I got to learn more about her and got to read more about her, and how she
went through a dark night, you know, a dark night of the soul, so to speak, where, you know, faith
was a struggle for her. And she continued to do the ministry that she did, even in the, in the midst of
that, even in the midst of the, the difficulty that she was facing in her own personal prayer life, and
her own personal faith life. And when we talk about faith journey, which is one of the missions of this
podcast, you know, we talk about how we kind of go up and down sometimes in our Faith Journeys,
and, and it is sometimes very difficult. You know, for us, even people who are in ministry, to take care
of ourselves and to take care of our own faith journey that were sometimes so busy taking care of
other people, not only their physical needs, but their spiritual needs as well, that it becomes difficult
for us to do that as well. So it is important and then and I'm kind of intrigued by that, as somebody
who was is great and as humble and as as service oriented as she was that she struggled with her
faith. And so it kind of gives me hope that you know, that when I struggle with my faith, which I do, at
times, you know, that that it is something that I can kind of fall back on and kind of say, hey, you
know, Mother Teresa can struggle, so can I as well. So those are the Four Saints that have really
canonized saints in the church that are really important to me.
14:46
But also when we talk about saints in this kind of is going to lead into All Souls a little bit. talks about
how All Souls and All Saints are connected and the reason why they're connected. It is because we
have in the church and the Catholic Church, something called the communion of saints. And the
communion of saints are people that have lived with us that have been with us that have gone before
us that are no longer with us here on this earthly life. But there are some there are people that we
can really look to and, and really look to as saintly, and the one person that I can truly, truly say, in
my, in my existence that has been saintly for me, has been my great grandmother, my Busia Vicki,
my Busia, Vicki came to came to the United States as a young girl, 13 years old, she was one of 13
children. So she was, you know, the 13th of that group. And so she was sent here to the United States
with nothing. And she built a life. And if it wasn't for her, if it wasn't for her resilience, and her, her,
you know, the work that she did, and the things that she did in her life, you know, I wouldn't be the
person that I am today. And I remember spending so much time with her when I was younger. She
lived to be 103 years old. And I remember spending time with her, I remember spending time with
her watching her cook and being out in her garden, picking apples that she would then turn into
applesauce and apple pie and all those different types of things. And the wonderful thing about her
was that she could understand a lot of the things that were being said, but because of her Polish
background, she really had never really learned how to speak English. But yet, we had this
communication between us that we could sit, and we can communicate. And, you know, even if it's
just one or two words, if there was just one or two things, we could communicate as well. So she was
a wonderful, wonderful person. And, you know, she was really the first death in my family that I
experienced when I was 26 years old when she passed. And I still miss her to this day, I still miss her
to this day, she was a wonderful person. So she is part of this communion of saints, I looked to her,
you know, her humbleness and her work ethic and all of the things that she did that that she was
saintly in many ways. Now, you know, was she saintly, and everything? No, absolutely not, none of us
are. But she was saintly in those things. And so she was able to be a role model for me not only to
how to live my life as a human, but also to live my life as a faithful person to Christ. And so that's a
wonderful, wonderful thing. I'm sure that I'm going to be sharing other information or other stories
about my great grandmother, in other episodes of this podcast.
17:51
So this then moves into All Souls and All Souls kind of answers or attempts the church's way of
answering the question, I think of what happens to us after we die, you know, it's an existential
question, you know, what happens to us after we die? How do what do we exist as after we die? And
so the church does kind of have this sense of place, you know, this sense of place that, you know,
they originated all the way from Plato, actually, but it's an idea of,
18:22
you know, we go to a place, you know, we live in a place we live in the earth, we live in the form of
the earth, in the form of interacting with people and things like that, well, what happens to us after
we die? Well, the church has come up with this sense of place. And so it has these three places, it has
heaven, and it has purgatory, and it has hell. And so, we have heaven, you know, which is, in my
estimation, the perfection of being with God, of being cleansed of being with him forever. We have
purgatory, where, you know, the Church teaches about purgatory is that there is a place that we go to
that we need to be cleansed, that we need to be in the best form possible in order to meet our maker
in order to meet God. And so our time in Purgatory is spent being cleansed of all the things in our in
the course of earthly life that we did wrong. So, you know, our time and Purgatory for all of us can be
different, but also to kind of again, mentioned the fact that when we talk about purgatory, and we talk
about time, you know, God's time is not our time. And so we have to remember that, even though you
know, we, we might think, well, people spend years in Purgatory, or people spend many, many days
in Purgatory and so on. Well, when we talk about God, you know, maybe the time in Purgatory is not
as long because there are all these people that have been praying for the souls in purgatory. And it is
also a time for when maybe God says, okay, you know, God's time is not our time. And we have been
cleansed of everything that we need. So that's the Purgatory. In Purgatory, I always say, you know,
it's not the whole idea of, okay, well, there's this trapdoor underneath us, and all of a sudden, God is
going to decide to pull that trapdoor and we're gonna go to the third place hell. But but that is not the
case, you know a lot of people have this idea that it's kind of like an in between place, but it is not it is
a place where we've already attained the joy of heaven. But we just have to be in the most perfect
state when we get there. So when we meet God, and when we're together with God, you know, we
can truly, truly enjoy that perfection.
19:53
And then there is the third place, there is the third place of hell, and the condemnation in the
loneliness, and all of the things that go along with whatever our version of Hell is, is, is real. And I
think people today in general, have kind of dismissed the idea of hell that, you know, we talk about
God's mercy, and we talk about how God is always merciful, and he's always going to forgive us all of
our sins. And, yes, that is true. But we, a lot of times in our life, we spend a lot of our life turning away
from God, turning away from what God wants from us. And that is something that we should not do,
we should not turn away from God, we should not turn away from the love and the mercy of God. And
so we have to realize that, when we do that, and especially when we do that, when we're close to
death, you know, that that is that, that we're kind of playing with fire a little bit, so to speak. You
know, not to be ironic, but that is the case is that, you know, we're kind of playing with fire, we're kind
of playing with the idea that if we do turn away from God, there is the possibility of hell for us. And,
you know, just like we can't conceive of the possibility of the perfection of heaven, I think, you know,
the, the, the torture, and the condemnation that we face, without having gotten our life in, in the
throes of Hell is is even worse. So it's very even difficult to even to kind of describe what hell would
be like. But I kind of think of it as you know, if you think of the worst thing that can happen to you,
and that worst thing happens to you over and over and over and over again, for all eternity. That is
really something that is, is really, really difficult to grasp and to, to put your head around sometimes.
So aside from all this, then, you know, Happiness comes, I think, from being close to God, whether
we're in this world, or we're in the next, that is where as human beings, we can be truly happy. And
so we need to have a good relationship with God. We need to have a relationship with God, where we
are close to him at every moment of the day. And we need to keep trying over and over and over
again, to cultivate that relationship. And we do that through prayer. We do that through loving other
people. We do that through worship, we do that through as Catholics for coming to Mass, we do all
those things, to try to live.
23:21
What the point of these three days really is, is to live a saintly life, to live as saints, to live as saints,
every moment of our existence every moment of our life. I tell the kids all the time. And I tell adults
as well, that we are called to be saints, we are called to be saints. Now, does that mean that all of us
are going to one day be canonized, recognize saints in the church? Probably not. But that does mean
that if we try to live saintly values, and saintly principles and saintly ways in our earthly life, that we
too, can be part of that communion of saints. And that is the important thing. And that's what we
should fight try to find out for ourselves. And we should try to do and try to be saintly every day.
24:16
So as we continue with this podcast, you know, over the next few few times, we'll try and discover
just what we can do to have that happen. How can we be saints? How can we be saints in our
just what we can do to have that happen. How can we be saints? How can we be saints in our
everyday life?
24:32
So I'd like to thank you for being with me here today. And hopefully, this kind of gave you some
practical and maybe some inspirational ideas about these three days of All Saints of All Souls and
obviously of All Hallows Eve that we're celebrating today. And so let us join. So join us again for on
the way with DJ and the next episode will be coming out in about a week's time. And so thanks again
for being with me here today and may God continue to bless to keep all of you in His loving care