The Archbishop of Arequipa (Peru), Bishop Javier del Río Alba, stated that celebrating All Saints on November 1 and the faithful departed on November 2 invites us to remember that God is stronger than death and that we have all been created for Heaven.
In his article titled “Between Saints and the Dead,” sent to ACI Prensa this Friday, October 31, on the eve of the Solemnity of All Saints, the Peruvian prelate recalls that on November 1, “we thank God for our brothers who have already reached Heaven and live fully with Him.”
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Not only for those known as Saint Ignatius of Loyola, Saint John Baptist de La Salle or Saint Catherine of Siena, but also for the many others who are already in Heaven with God and “whose names we do not know.”
Bishop Del Río then explains that on November 2, deceased people are remembered who are in Purgatory, where they are purified before reaching Heaven.
“These two liturgical celebrations remind us that we have not been created for eternal death but for Heaven. God has created us out of love and ardently desires that we live with Him for all eternity, participating in His divine life,” he said.
Likewise, the Peruvian archbishop continued, the two celebrations “speak to us about the inevitable nature of death, but they speak to us above all about the resurrection, because God is stronger than death and whoever dies in communion with Him will also live eternally with Him.”
“The celebration of all the saints and the faithful departed invites us to look to Heaven, where God and the festive community of brothers in faith who have gone before us await us,” he highlighted.
At the same time “they invite us to look at how we are living in this world that, although it is temporary, is the place and time that God grants us to prepare ourselves to live with Him for all eternity”, following the path opened by Jesus which is that of “the beatitudes, which we too are called to travel.”
Walter Sánchez Silva
I have been a husband since 2008. My wife and I have three children here and one who went to heaven in 2023, before he was born. Since I joined ACI Prensa in 2005, I have had the opportunity to cover various events of the Catholic Church. Among them, the World Youth Days in Cologne, Madrid and Rio de Janeiro and the apostolic trips of Pope Benedict XVI to Mexico and of Pope Francis to South Korea. I have been sent to the Vatican to cover the Family synods, in 2015; of the Amazon, in 2019 and that of Synodality, in 2023. I closely follow the situation of the Catholic Church in Nicaragua, which suffers persecution from the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega, as well as current ecclesiastical events in the region.