Dear Sunday Mass Faith Community and Friends,

It has been a difficult year to say the least and as I write this letter at the beginning of August there is still a lot of uncertainty ahead of us. For all of us these past six plus months have been difficult and unsettling. We all know people who have died from the Covid 19 virus or complications from it. We or people we know have had loved ones who have died and could not be with them in the last weeks, days, hours, and minutes of their lives. Until recently there have been no funerals, wakes or opportunities to say good-bye and I genuinely believe that saying good-bye, remembering a loved one, a friend is extremely important.

Each year, but especially this year, November 2nd, All Soul’s Day, gives us the opportunity to remember and if need be to say good-bye to all our deceased loved ones. Whether they died many years ago or during the past year. During the month of November, we get the chance to remember and to be thankful for all the important people in our lives who have passed from this life to eternal life. As the writer of the Book of Wisdom puts it, those souls of the just are in the hands of God and at peace.

Here at The Sunday Mass we remember and give thanks for the deceased loved ones of our television and internet Faith Community through the intentions we place next to the altar each Sunday. Holy Mass is the perfect celebration in which to call to mind the Communion of Saints in which our loved ones now participate. We give thanks for their time with us and we continue to be inspired and call beyond ourselves to a higher place, to a sense of hope through our remembrance of them.

Each November here at The Sunday Mass we try to remember the deceased loved ones of our television and internet faith community, in a special way each Sunday as we gather to celebrate the Eucharist. November is also a time to be thankful thus we know how important it is to bring the circle of love and thankfulness that we share with those who have gone before us into our Sunday celebration. We pray for them, we pray to them, and we trust in and are thankful for their prayers for us.

We invite you to send in the names of those you wish us to remember, pray for, and give thanks for on All Soul’s Day and throughout the Sundays of November. We will put them in the basket next to the altar during The Sunday Mass. The names will be a visible sign of the people we hold so dear to our hearts.

Thank you for your continued participation in and support of The Sunday Mass. May God bless your generosity, commitment, and faith! Please accept the enclosed Prayer Card as a token of our thanks and appreciation.

Peace in Christ’s Passion,

Fr. Paul R. Fagan, C.P.
Executive Producer and Host of The Sunday Mass

Death is nothing at all

Death is nothing at all
I have only slipped away

into the next room.
I am I

and you are you;

whatever we were to each other,
that, we still are.
Call me by my old familiar name,

speak to me in the easy way

which you always used
put no difference in your tone
wear no forced air

of solemnity or sorrow.
Laugh as we always laughed

at the little jokes we shared together.

Let my name ever be

the household word that it always was.

Let it be spoken without effect
without the trace of a shadow on it.
Life means all
that it ever meant.

It is the same as it ever was.

There is unbroken continuity.
Why should I be out of mind

ecause I am out of sight?
I am waiting for you
for an interval
somewhere very near
just around the corner.
All is well.

Henry Scott Holland

1847 -1918