All Saints & All Souls Mass Schedule

Tuesday, November 1st is the Solemnity of All Saints, & Wednesday, November 2nd is the Solemnity of All Souls ... 

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God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might have eternal life. Dear Friends,  Happy Sunday, we bring you a special WEEKEND edition of the newsletter advertising the upcoming Holy Day schedule. Tuesday,  November 1st is the Solemnity of All Saints, and it is a Holy Day of Obligation. See the Mass schedule below! And Wednesday, November 2nd, is the Solemnity of All Souls. This 7 p.m. Mass at SJB will be in English with bilingual readings and music. Please join us as we remember all of our family and friends who have gone before us in the sure and certain hope of the resurrection. The names of all those who have been buried from BCA Parish this past year, will be especially remembered and read aloud during Mass. The Story of the Solemnity of All Saints   The earliest certain observance of a feast in honor of all the saints is an early fourth-century commemoration of “all the martyrs.” In the early seventh century, after successive waves of invaders plundered the catacombs, Pope Boniface IV gathered up some 28 wagon-loads of bones and reinterred them beneath the Pantheon, a Roman temple dedicated to all the gods. The pope rededicated the shrine as a Christian church. According to Venerable Bede, the pope intended “that the memory of all the saints might in the future be honored in the place which had formerly been dedicated to the worship not of gods but of demons” (On the Calculation of Time). But the rededication of the Pantheon, like the earlier commemoration of all the martyrs, occurred in May. Many Eastern Churches still honor all the saints in the spring, either during the Easter season or immediately after Pentecost. How the Western Church came to celebrate this feast, now recognized as a solemnity, in November is a puzzle to historians. The Anglo-Saxon theologian Alcuin observed the feast on November 1 in 800, as did his friend Arno, Bishop of Salzburg. Rome finally adopted that date in the ninth century. Reflection This feast first honored martyrs. Later, when Christians were free to worship according to their consciences, the Church acknowledged other paths to sanctity. In the early centuries the only criterion was popular acclaim, even when the bishop’s approval became the final step in placing a commemoration on the calendar. The first papal canonization occurred in 993; the lengthy process now required to prove extraordinary sanctity took form in the last 500 years. Today’s feast honors the obscure as well as the famous—the saints each of us have known. Franciscan Media The Story of the Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed   The Church has encouraged prayer for the dead from the earliest times as an act of Christian charity. “If we had no care for the dead,” Augustine noted, “we would not be in the habit of praying for them.” Yet pre-Christian rites for the deceased retained such a strong hold on the superstitious imagination that a liturgical commemoration was not observed until the early Middle Ages, when monastic communities began to mark an annual day of prayer for the departed members. In the middle of the 11th century, Saint Odilo, abbot of Cluny, France, decreed that all Cluniac monasteries offer special prayers and sing the Office for the Dead on November 2, the day after the feast of All Saints. The custom spread from Cluny and was finally adopted throughout the Roman Church. The theological underpinning of the feast is the acknowledgment of human frailty. Since few people achieve perfection in this life but, rather, go to the grave still scarred with traces of sinfulness, some period of purification seems necessary before a soul comes face-to-face with God. The Council of Trent affirmed this purgatory state and insisted that the prayers of the living can speed the process of purification. Superstition easily clung to the observance. Medieval popular belief held that the souls in purgatory could appear on this day in the form of witches, toads or will-o’-the-wisps. Graveside food offerings supposedly eased the rest of the dead. Observances of a more religious nature have survived. These include public processions or private visits to cemeteries and decorating graves with flowers and lights. This feast is observed with great fervor in Mexico. Reflection Whether or not one should pray for the dead is one of the great arguments which divide Christians. Appalled by the abuse of indulgences in the Church of his day, Martin Luther rejected the concept of purgatory. Yet prayer for a loved one is, for the believer, a way of erasing any distance, even death. In prayer we stand in God’s presence in the company of someone we love, even if that person has gone before us into death. ~ Franciscan Media "Our goal must be the infinite and not the finite. The Infinity is our homeland. We are always expected in Heaven." Online Book of Intentions   Praying for each other's intentions is an important part of our parish life. If you would like the parish to pray for your intention, please write the intention in a sentence or two in this Online "Book of Intentions."  These intentions will be remembered in our intercessions at our Sunday masses. Click HERE Please pray for the Sick of our Parish Doreen Maneely, Anna Mann, Nicole Vilches, Karel O’Brien, Angela Rivera, Mary Anne Sedey, Linda Klickmann, Barbara Durbin, Danny Olivero, Junior Burgos, Dolores Kryszak, Joseph Price, Teresa Ellison, Grace Gauss, Tallulah Andresen, Robert Bauer, Antionette Krerowicz, Ana Flores, Apolonio Alarcon, Antonio de Vera, Patricio A. Yanez Guerra,  Manglio Bonilla Gail, Jason & Family, Basilisa M. De Guzman, Daniel Brady, Cyndi De Lira, Carolyn S. Duckunue, Transito Alvarez, Frances Alequin, Alejandro Carmona, Sophie Hernan, Eleanor Jura, Monika Kloniecka, Joseph Wyse,  Verena Tonnesen, Berenice Sosnowski, Nick Jurado, Jackie Schuman,  Terry Brady, Salomea Olszewska, Hertha Runowski, Angie Schuman, John Graff, Joseph Murphy, Linda Riske, Margaret Flisiak, Jazzmyne Aguilar, Hailey Marose, Sarah Ellison, Nancy Idaszak, Sally Cox, Daniel Salas, Eleanor Rylko, Nancy, Brian, Jimmy Denges, & Crystal Mohetano. 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