FROM THE PASTOR
My dear parishioners,
During the month of November, we remember all the faithful departed souls and pray for their salvation. I find that the Catholic Church has the most beautiful prayers for souls leaving the world and for those who are already on the other side. Funeral prayers and those we pray at the bedsides of people who are dying are comforting and seem to express exactly what the family is usually feeling.
As beautiful as the prayers are, there are times when my humanity gets in the way and renders them much less effective. I have learned the hard way that if I don’t write down the name of the deceased person, I run the terrible risk of forgetting their name, or worse, saying the wrong name. After a couple of horrible experiences of the latter, in which my forgetfulness left the families quite angry, I adopted the practice of placing a small sticky note with the name of the deceased person next to the prayers in the funeral book. That simple addition gave both the families and me much peace.