The month of November opens up with the solemnity of All Saints and the 2nd of November reminds us to pray for all our deceased family members and members of the Church. The Holy Mother the Church places before all her faithful children of the reality of three churches: i.e. the militant, that of the suffering and of the triumphant. Those of us who are still alive and go about with our daily hustle and bustle of life belong to the militant church and need to keep our faith alive and active through witnessing to the commandment of our Lord Jesus Christ to love one another as He loved us thereby translating the message of the Gospel into our daily life; this is not so very easy because of the several tribulations and temptations we need to continually fight against in order to remain committed to our baptismal vows and Christian vocation.
Those who depart from this earthly life need to be purified in order to merit heaven so, as our faith teaches us that souls go to purgatory, where they undergo suffering due to their failures, shortcomings and sins committed during earthly life after which they would join those who are already in heaven: glorious and triumphant. As we rejoice over all those who have been found worthy to be in heaven, we need to earnestly pray for our suffering brothers and sisters in purgatory through and by our life of prayer, penance and sacrifices here on earth, a militant journey which will lead us to the triumphant heavenly Jerusalem being purified through the sufferings in purgatory.
The month of November also keeps up the solemnity of Jesus Christ as King of the Universal Church and the Diocese of Udupi proclaims this fact of Christ’s Universal Kingship with a solemn Eucharistic Procession on 25 November this year to be held from Mount Rosary Church at Santhekatte to Milagres Cathedral at Kallianpur. Therefore let us pray to the Eucharistic Lord Jesus Christ to bless our militant life here on earth to make it worthy of heaven as we rejoice over those who are with Him glorious and triumphant and earnestly pray for those who are suffering in purgatory.
XGerald Isaac Lobo
Bishop of Udupi