God made you so that you could someday be happy with Him in heaven

As Catholics, we celebrate November as the month of the communion of saints, with the Solemnity of All Saints followed immediately by the Feast of All Souls. These first two days of November provide us with the reminders not only of our own mortality, but more importantly our eternal destiny.
 
At every Holy Mass, we pray for the living and the dead and petition God the Father that all may be united with God in heaven in the company of the saints, especially Our Blessed Mother and Saint Joseph. From a young age we have been taught that it is a very good thing for us to pray for our deceased family members, relatives, friends and all the faithful departed.
 
Why is this good? Why should we pray for all of the faithful departed? Simply put, because we, like them, live in communion not only with each other but with Almighty God, even in our earthly lives. This communion of all the faithful, the saints in heaven, the holy souls in purgatory, and all of us living on earth share and have shared a common faith, we have and receive the same sacraments to nourish and strengthen that faith, and we all have lived and continue to live that faith each day as if that day will be our last on earth. We do all of this in communion with the faithful departed in the hope that is born from the merciful love God has for each of us.
 
When we pray for the faithful departed we are performing that Spiritual Work of Mercy which is to pray for the living and the dead. Our prayers assist them in their time of purification so as to enter heaven, and our prayers for them renew our own faith and hope in eternal life with God. The examples of the saints, especially Our Blessed Mother and Saint Joseph, give us great consolation and encouragement not only because they are praying for us, but they show us, by their lives, that we are all to be saints which is God’s will.
 
Every November, as my point for an examination of conscience, I use what I learned as a young boy from my Baltimore Catechism. The question and answer are: “Why did God make you? God made me to know, love and serve Him in this world so as to be happy with Him in heaven.” This is how we become saints. This is what the communion of saints is all about. This is what the Church wants for us in November and always.