Framing our lives in terms of time and eternity

As the month of November arrives, the eleventh month in our calendar year, for as long as I can remember I have looked back over the year and found so many joys and a few disappointments. However, what gives my memories of the year a context is November 1st followed by November 2nd.
 
All Saints’ Day, a holy day of obligation, renews and strengthens my faith, and All Souls’ Day helps me understand better the theological virtue of hope. Of course, these two days are not the only ones and only time that my faith and hope are strengthened, but these two days always help me to frame my life in terms of time and eternity.
 
Perhaps this is your experience as well. When we observe the Solemnity of All Saints, we are acting on our profession of faith in the great Communion of Saints. The myriads upon myriads of holy women and men, young and old, all those who have gone before us in faith and have seen the Lord Jesus Who judged them worthy of heaven, are our spiritual relatives, our brothers and sisters in the order of grace. All of this is very real and possible because of Jesus and it is His will that we join them to be with Him in heaven.
 
Our years on earth, no matter how brief or lengthy, are a gift to us; the time given by God to use to the best of our abilities the faith we first received in baptism for the purpose for which He gave it to us—to come to know, to love and to serve Him here so that we will be happy with Him for all eternity in heaven. Every single saint, known and unknown to us, is living proof that this is true and that it is very possible for us to do, not alone or on our terms, but with God’s grace and by living our faith His way. 
 
This is why November 1st is a holy day of obligation, a day when we make sure to attend and participate at Holy Mass not just because we must but because we want to deepen our relationship with Almighty God, the love of the lives of every saint. We should know that we need to be like the saints in how they loved and served God in their lives.
 
All Souls’ Day, as I said, helps me understand better the virtue of hope because these holy souls who loved and served God in their lives, now await heaven of which they are assured, but must depend on us to assist them through that state of purgative love, purgatory, on the way to heaven. The souls in purgatory are consoled by the virtue of hope, hope in the eternal mercy of God and hope in you and me to assist them with our fervent prayers and penances and our sincere acts of charity. They can no longer help themselves as they were able to do in this earthly life by prayer and the sacraments and good works which they pursued, so now it is for us to help them.
 
What we can be certain of in the month of November and every day is that the saints in heaven and the holy souls in purgatory pray for us here on earth and they are anxious for each of us to join them in eternal happiness. What these two days also teach us is that as anxious as the saints are for us to be with them, the Lord is much more anxious for us to be with them and Him. Please go to Holy Mass on these two days and be renewed and strengthened in your faith and hope in Him Who is our way, our truth and our life.
 
These two days at the beginning of November should help us put our own lives in the proper perspective of time and eternity.