November 2, 2009 — All Souls’ Day
I’ve ever mixed up All Saints’ and All Souls’ days. Not this year. Commemoratio omnium Fidelium Defunctorum…if my study is aright that means the commemoration of all the faithful departed.
And so we ask your commendation for all those listed here, victims of murder. Pray, too, for those who have transgressed and deprived the murdered ones of their lives. This is a terrible burden for them to bear if they have any shred of humanity left them. Their lives are marked forever. We believe that those who have gotten away with it really haven’t. We believe there is an accounting, a tenet of all faiths based on the Book: Judaism, Christianity, Islam. The invitation for atonement is always there and begins with admission of what we’ve done.
So prayers for those who have been deprived of their lives and those who have deprived them are in order.
This day is also two years and one day following the guilty verdicts in the murder trial of Janet Chandler. That was on All Saints’ Day, 2006. Mmmm. November 1.