I pay more attention to All Souls’ Day than to All Saints’, because I feel a more direct personal involvement in it. We’re forbidden to judge the state of another’s soul, but we (or at least I) can’t help having some kind of opinion. And I’m not entirely at ease about many of my deceased relatives, not because they were wicked people, but because they were either passively or actively estranged from God. I think in particular of one relative who died, as far as I know, still in the great bitterness that had possessed her for some years. I feel a great duty to pray for them, and find the belief that my prayers matter very comforting. I also find it deeply comforting to hope that I’ll be the beneficiary of similar prayers in my time.
That of course doesn’t make the belief true, but it’s another instance of the way that, even from the earthly point of view, so many of the heart’s deepest questions and impulses are answered by the Catholic faith.
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Although it’s a couple of days late, I thought this fellow, my wife’s creation, deserved a little publicity. He got very little attention on Halloween night, since our house is a little out of the way and we don’t get trick-or-treaters or even passers-by.
I think he was just miraculously transformed from a holiday ornament to a vigil light.
Pre-TypePad
Light On Dark Water 
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