November, a month to help us look upwards

November begins in glory and ends with a king.

In my climate, the days are growing shorter. The trees are losing their leaves. The world around us seems to be preparing for a long sleep.

But the Church asks us to lift our eyes.

On November 1, we celebrate the feast of All Saints: not only the saints whose names appear on the calendar, but the countless others known to God alone. St. John, in the Book of Revelation, saw them as “a great multitude which no man could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and tongues.”

Among them are the apostles and martyrs, the great teachers and founders of religious orders. But there are also mothers and fathers, farmers and factory workers, children and grandparents — people who loved God and served their neighbors in ways that attracted little notice at the time.

The saints are not merely heroes from the past. They are alive in Christ. They are our brothers and sisters, and they pray for us. The Letter to the Hebrews tells us that we are surrounded by “so great a cloud of witnesses.” We do not make our way to heaven alone.

On the following day, All Souls’ Day, we turn our attention to those who have died and are being purified for the joy of heaven. We pray for them, just as we prayed for them in life. Death has changed our relationship with them, but it has not ended our love.

A visit to a cemetery in November can be an act of faith as well as remembrance. We can stand at a grave, recall a familiar face, and offer a prayer. We can have a Mass offered for a loved one. We can pray, too, for those who have no one left to remember them.

All Saints and All Souls belong together. They show us a family bound together in Christ: those in heaven, those being purified, and those of us still making our way on earth. We ask the saints to pray for us. We pray for the dead. And we trust that God’s mercy is greater than the distance we feel.

Near the end of November comes the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe. Here we see the source of all the glory we have been celebrating.

The saints are holy because they share in Christ’s holiness. The departed are purified by his mercy. We persevere because he has opened the way before us.

His crown is unlike any other: it was made of thorns. His throne was a cross. His victory came through a love stronger than death.

November may look like the end of things. But for Christians, it is a month of grandeur — and a reminder of where, and to whom, we belong.