- Feb 5, 2002
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The faithful departed are not distant memories but companions still — God binds us together, even across death itself.
In the squire’s pew in an Anglican church near him, wrote Father Ronald Knox, was a brass plaque reading Absentes adsunt, meaning “The absent are present.” In an Anglican church that meant present as memories or in some vague spiritual way. Unsatisfactory to me, but the best Anglicans could do given their theology.
For the Catholic, the dead are present to us not just as memories, Knox explained. “The true bond which links us, immortal beings, to one another is the exchange of our prayers. … It is only when we forget the dead that they are absent; we have but to kneel down, and they are present.”
I think of All Souls, the Commemoration of the Faithful Departed, as a feast of friendship, as the celebration of the continued and continuing presence of the dead with us and in our lives. It declares the good news that we have been separated but not severed. The absent are present, truly if invisibly present, not just pictures in our minds or feelings in our hearts.
Continued below.
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In the squire’s pew in an Anglican church near him, wrote Father Ronald Knox, was a brass plaque reading Absentes adsunt, meaning “The absent are present.” In an Anglican church that meant present as memories or in some vague spiritual way. Unsatisfactory to me, but the best Anglicans could do given their theology.
For the Catholic, the dead are present to us not just as memories, Knox explained. “The true bond which links us, immortal beings, to one another is the exchange of our prayers. … It is only when we forget the dead that they are absent; we have but to kneel down, and they are present.”
I think of All Souls, the Commemoration of the Faithful Departed, as a feast of friendship, as the celebration of the continued and continuing presence of the dead with us and in our lives. It declares the good news that we have been separated but not severed. The absent are present, truly if invisibly present, not just pictures in our minds or feelings in our hearts.
Neglected Good News
Continued below.
All Souls Day Is a Feast of Our Friendship With the Dead
COMMENTARY: The faithful departed are not distant memories but companions still — God binds us together, even across death itself.
