All Christians have hope in the promise of the
resurrection of those who have died in—or known by—Christ. But we hold a range
of views concerning the time-line of eternity, so-to-speak. As I understand it,
the Roman Church remembers those who have reached the joy of heaven on All
Saints; and those who are in the intermediary state of purgatory, or purification,
on All Souls. Anglicans don’t subscribe to the doctrine of purgatory, but are
open to an intermediary state (indeed, heaven itself is temporary, awaiting the
new heaven and new earth).
Nonetheless, the
idea of purgatory is a helpful analogy for the process and purpose of
remembering.
The human being is a storied creature. The act of
remembering is not so much about living in the past as about curating the
stories which have shaped us in regularly-refreshed arrangements to inform the
continually changing present. Just as the best museums and art galleries do.
All Souls creates room to remember those we have
known personally, and lost. These memories are in a state of purification:
alongside thankfulness, we also experience numbness, sorrow, regret, anger, a
need to extend forgiveness either/or both/and to the deceased and to ourselves—a
whole range of memories with emotional attachments that need to be worked
through, over an indeterminate but lengthy period of time.
All Saints creates room to remember those who have
passed beyond that initial stage, for whom we are able to lay to rest the hurt
and pain human lives inevitably cause, and gladly give thanks for the good that
endures. This is not to pretend that our ancestors were saints in the popular
sense of ‘did no wrong’ but rather to receive the gift of forgiveness of sins
and the redeeming work of God to bring good even out of evil.
Of course, how we curate those stories can still
help us address the ongoing challenges of our own time.
So, for example, there is much in the history of
Europe (a history that has shaped me), inseparable from Church history, that is
lamentable; but there comes a time to focus on the good, the amazing riches of
that cultural inheritance.
That we observe All Saints first, and only then All
Souls, reminds us of the end goal of memory: the ongoing passing from death
into life.
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