Remembering the Dead in November

Below is my latest mediation for St. Colms High School. Please not its a Catholic high school, so the meditation is based upon Catholic beliefs this week.  

Do you ever find the month of November to be a bit of a depressing month?  Everything outside is dying, the trees are barren with maybe a couple leaves still holding on, the air is Baltic, and you barely have time to walk home from school before it starts to get dark.  It's the beginning of the long winter months. To make things worse, they keep talking about November Dead at school.  Could November get anymore depressing? 

Why do we remember the dead in November anyways? The Catholic 
Church sets aside the month of November to remember and pray for all those who have died especially our friends and family.  We write their names down on pieces of paper to go into the church, we attend mass, we light candles, and we say prayers for all those who have died.  We pray especially for the souls who are in purgatory being cleansed from their sins and preparing themselves for eternity with God in Heaven.  They need our prayers as they wait for their time in heaven.  Once in heaven they will then pray for us and all of our needs here on earth.

There is nothing more depressing or despairing then thinking that death is the end. If there was nothing more after death, then there would be nothing to hope in or for.  But it's NOT over!  Over 2000 years ago, Jesus broke through death, pain, suffering, and despair when he rose again from the dead into hope of the resurrection. We now have hope because of the resurrection. Christ offers us hope in the face of death.

In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus said, "Now he is God, not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all men are in fact alive."  May we take great hope in the resurrection of Jesus Christ and into the fact that our love ones are no longer dead but alive in Christ.  May we always keep them in our prayers until we too one day see them alive in heaven.  

Close in prayer:  In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Let us quietly remember all those we know who have died and ask Gods blessing upon them. 

End with: Our Father, Hail Mary, and Glory be, and the Sign of the Cross