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Many of us are surrounded by friends and family from birth to death and will never be forgotten by our relatives.
However, that is not always the case and there have been a countless number of souls who died in isolation, without anyone to comfort them.
These poor souls did not have any children or grandchildren or even any siblings.
They may have even been homeless, without the earthly comfort of any family or even any friends.
When they died, they may have been given a simple grave that nobody visits and which is overgrown with weeds.
The good news is that the Church has provided a day in the liturgical year that embraces all souls, especially those forgotten.
All Souls Day
Dom Prosper Guéranger highlights this reality in his Liturgical Year:
As [the Church] honored with thanksgiving the anniversaries of her martyred sons, so she celebrated with supplications the memory of her other children who might not yet be in heaven…Thus as, St. Augustine remarks, those who had no relatives and friends on earth were henceforth not deprived of suffrages; for to make up for their abandonment, they had the tender compassion of the common Mother.
While All Souls Day is certainly a day to remember our own relatives and friends who have died, we should also bring to mind these abandoned souls.
Nobody prays for them or offers Masses for them, and so the Church lifts them up on a single day.
Someday we may get to meet all those souls we prayed for, and they will express to us the gratitude they have for our prayers.
And today we celebrate...