We are taking things easy this week with all the extra excitement. After sleeping in a bit, having a late breakfast, and doing morning chores I consult the color-coded lists that were made at the beginning of the year and gear the day around reaching the goals that were set for Oct. 31. It's a relaxed pace, and one that I rather wish we could take every day.
With most of the morning devoted to read alouds on the sofa, we have finally finished the Book of VIrtues (this took two years) and are very close to finishing the Voss Story Bible (another 2-3 year read). We read Father Phillip Tells a Ghost Story to turn our hearts and minds to All Saints/Souls Day, and See How They Run as a crash course in government before election day. Another favorite is this edition of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow retold and illustrated by the great-grandson of Grandma Moses.
After sofa time we move to the table to catch up with Lingua Angelica and Classic Tunes and Tales, we break for lunch and at least an hour outside. Now the only subjects in which we are hopelessly behind are art and science, but I don't feel too bad about that since the kids are keeping up with their own drawing book and they are taking a once a week science class. Winter days are coming when we can do art indoors after lunch instead of staying outside to play.
This week presents so much on which to reflect - the storm, the election, and liturgical days that commemorate the dead. The concept of purgatory is so comforting, and so just. How do we know which friends and relatives are in heaven or purgatory? A priest friend of ours once observed that if we assume a soul to be in heaven, but they are not, who will pray for them? He thought it a great injustice to deny the existence of purgatory if there are souls who need our help to be cleansed to enter heaven. When I remember the dead I pray for souls who might be in purgatory and ask the intercession of those who are in heaven - not knowing exactly who is where. I suppose I could ask for a sign, but would I be attentive enough to notice? Would I believe? Would I read more into a circumstance than I should? I don't know, but I do know that I will take my children to Mass for both All Saints and All Souls Day to pray for those who have died, and to pray for my own family, and for a happy death when my time (and their time) comes.
Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon
them. May the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of
God, rest in peace. Amen.
