After praying the midday Angelus this November 2, Pope Leo noted that he will physically visit a Roman cemetery this afternoon, and spiritually visit the graves of his own loved ones.
This afternoon, at the Verano Cemetery, I will celebrate the Eucharist for all the faithful departed. In spirit, I will visit the graves of my loved ones, and I will also pray for those who have no one to remember them. But our heavenly Father knows and loves each of us, and he forgets no one!
To all of you, I wish a blessed Sunday in Christian remembrance of our departed loved ones.
The Holy Father's reflection before the Angelus considered the invitation to hope contained in these holy days, both the celebration of the Saints on November 1, and today's day of prayer.
Here is a translation of what he said:
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Dear brothers and sisters, Happy Sunday!
In these first days of November, the resurrection of the crucified Jesus from the dead sheds light on the destiny of each one of us. For he told us: “This is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day” (Jn 6:39). Thus, the focus of God’s concerns is clear: that no one should perish forever and that everyone should have their own place and radiate their unique beauty.
This is the mystery that we celebrated yesterday on the Solemnity of All Saints: a communion of differences that, so to speak, extends God’s life to all his daughters and sons who wish to share in it. It is the desire written in the heart of every human being, a longing for recognition, attention and joy. As Pope Benedict XVI explained, the expression “eternal life” gives a name to this insuppressible expectation: not a succession of time without end, but being so immersed in an ocean of infinite love that time, before, and after no longer exist. This fullness of life and joy in Christ is what we hope for and await with all our being (cf. Encyclical Letter Spe Salvi, 12).
Today’s Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed brings this mystery even closer to us. Indeed, each time that death seems definitively to take away a voice, a face, or an entire world, interiorly we understand God’s concern that no one perish. In fact, each person is an entire world. Today, then, is a day that challenges the human memory, so precious and yet so fragile. Without the memory of Jesus – of his life, death and resurrection – the immense treasure of daily life risks being forgotten. In the mind of Jesus, however, even those whom no one remembers, or whom history seems to have erased, always remain in their infinite dignity. Jesus, the rock which the builders rejected, is now the cornerstone (cf. Acts 4:11). That is the Easter proclamation. For this reason, Christians always remember the deceased in every Eucharist, and still today ask that those dear to them be remembered in the Eucharistic Prayer. From this proclamation arises the hope that no one will perish.
May visiting the cemetery, where silence interrupts the hustle and bustle of life, invite us all to remember and to wait in hope. As we say in the Creed: “I look forward to the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.” Let us commemorate, therefore, the future, for we are not enclosed in the past or in sentimental tears of nostalgia. Neither are we sealed within the present, as in a tomb. May the familiar voice of Jesus reach us, and reach everyone, because it is the only one that comes from the future. May he call us by name, prepare a place for us, free us from that sense of helplessness that tempts us to give up on life. May Mary, the woman of Holy Saturday, teach us once again to hope.
