From a sermon for All Saints and All Souls Day by Fr. Karl Rahner 

Over against the loud cries of our drives, and over against the anxious, hasty protestations with which we mortals assure ourselves of our mutual love, God’s word enwraps us and all our noisy words in his life.  This is the way he commands us to relinquish all things in the daring act of loving faith, in order to find our eternal homeland in his life.

And it is precisely in this way that the silence of our dead also calls out to us.  They live in his life, and that is why they speak his words to us.  They speak the word of the God of the true life, the word that is far removed from our dying.  The dead are silent because they live, just as our noisy chatter is supposed to make us forget that we are dying.  Their silence is the word of their love for us, the real message that they have for us.  By this word they are really near to us, provided only that we listen to this soundless word and understand it, and do not drown it out through the noise of everyday life....They are near us together with the silent God, the God of the silent dead, the living God of the living.  He calls out to us through his silence, and they, by their silence, summon us into God’s life.

Let us therefore be mindful of our dead, our living.  Our love for them, our loyalty to them is the proof of our faith in him, the God of everlasting life.  Let us not ignore the silence of the dead, the silence that is the most ardent word of their love....for they have gone away from us in order that their love, having gone into God, may be all the closer to us.

Be mindful of the dead, O heart.  They live.  Your own life, the life still hidden even to you, they live unveiled in eternal light.  Our living who are with the God of live cannot forget us dead.  God has granted our living everything, for he has given them himself.  But he goes further and also grants them this favor: that their silence will become the most eloquent word of their love for us, the word that will accompany our love home to them, into their life and their light.

Hidden in the peace of the eternal God, filled with his own bliss, redeemed for eternity, permeated with love for us that can never cease, they...utter the prayer of their love for us: “Lord, grant eternal rest to them whom we love – as never before – in your love.  Grant it to them who still walk the hard road of pilgrimage, which is nonetheless the road that leads to us and to your eternal light.  We, although silent, are not closer to them than ever before, closer than when we were sojourning and struggling along with them on Earth.  Grant to them, too, Lord, eternal rest, and may your perpetual light shine on them as on us.  May it shine upon them now as the light of faith, and then in eternity, as the light of blessed life.”

Be mindful of the dead, O heart.  Call them into your heart...listen to their silence, learn form them the one thing necessary: celebrate the feast of your saints.  For then the God of all the living will be mindful of us who are dead, and he will one day be our life, too.  

Musical Selection

Prayer

Almighty God and Father,

by the mystery of the cross you have made us strong;

by the sacrament of the resurrection

you have sealed us as your own.

Look kindly upon your servants,

now freed from the bonds of mortality,

and count them among your saints in heaven.

We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,

who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,

God for ever and ever.  Amen.