Month in honor of the Poor Souls in Purgatory.
Today is the First Friday of November.
From the Sermons of St. Bernard, Abbot (of Clairvaux)
2nd for All Saints' Day
Dearly beloved brethren, since we keep on this day the memory of all the Saints, that memory so joyous and so worthy of all our thoughts, it seemeth to me worth the while, the Holy Ghost helping me, to address to your kind indulgence some remarks upon that happiness which they are all enjoying in blessed restfulness, and that final consummation they are awaiting. It is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that if we thus solemnly honour them, we should follow the example of their conversation; if we proclaim them so blessed, we should strive our best to reach the same blessedness; if we are well pleased to hear them praised, we should be bettered by their prayers. What is it to the Saints that we should praise them? What to them that we should glorify them? What is this our Feast to them? What are honours on earth to them whom, according as the Son hath faithfully promised, His Father is honouring? What are our eulogies to them? They are full. Verily, dearly beloved brethren, of our goods the Saints have no need, and our devotion toward them doth nothing for them. Our honouring their memory hath to do with ourselves and not with them. Would ye know what it hath to do with us? In me I confess that at their remembrance I feel kindled a vehement longing, yea, a three-fold longing. It is a common saying that out of sight, out of mind. The memory is a kind of sight, and to think of the Saints, is to call them up before the mind's eye. Such is our portion in the land of the living, but it is not a little portion, if love, as it ought to do, be joined with remembrance; it is in such sense that we must say that "our conversation is in Heaven" (Phil. iii. 20). Very differently to what is theirs. For they are there actually, where we are only in desire; they in very presence, we only in thought.