The following is a transcript of Bishop Caggiano’s homily from All Souls Day Mass, November 2 at St. Peter Cemetery
My dear sisters and brothers in the Lord,
He finally came to visit. It was 12 minutes past four o’clock. On the eighth day of January, 2012, it was a Saturday. I knew he was not far away because my mother was struggling for a few days, I, intuiting her life was coming to an end. And so the angel of death came to visit. My family was preparing for this day for a long time, for she had been diagnosed with non-small cell lung cancer 13 months prior.
But we have all been in that place Have we not? Someone we love dearly. Perhaps we are preparing ourselves. Perhaps it comes suddenly. Whenever the moment does come, nothing can prepare us for that experience. Because our minds are immediately filled with memories of the past, fears for the future, tremendous sorrow for the loss of the person who is so much a part of our lives, and, if we were honest, tears as much for ourselves as for those whom we have lost. And for a priest to say this is extraordinary. But I was at a loss for words, completely at a loss for words.
And at the time, I was the pastor of St. Dominic’s in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. And so the next day was Sunday Mass. And with all of this swirling in my mind, I remember right before I was going to pick up the consecrated host, when the priest fractures it as a sign of that which the Lord has done for us. My mind heard with a voice that was not my own. “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood shall live in me”. And in that moment was the beginning of a healing that has taken years to move forward. Same for all of us in this place.
On this All Soul’s Day, we come here to pray for all the dead, those known to you, those who are buried here in this cemetery, neighbors, friends, relatives, all those who have passed away in all the centuries of human life. We pray for those who died in Valencia, in Spain. Suddenly, death came to visit them on a day they did not expect. No different than those who died in North Carolina in so many different times and places in our lives. We lift them all as the Holy souls to ask God’s mercy upon them and to remember the words of our savior, He who eats my flesh or drinks my blood will have life in Me. He or she will never die.
On this Old Soul’s Day, we end our Eucharistic Pilgrimage today at this very celebration and the procession to follow. For Jesus has visited the living, now He comes to visit the dead. For He is master of both, and He calls both to life. Consider, my friends, all those who are buried here, how often they receive the bread of life, drank from the cup of eternal salvation. All who are buried here who believe deeply in their hearts that the Lord can be trusted and believed because He is God made man, the one who could deliver what He promises, the one who never lies and never fails.
You see, we come here not to mourn, but to celebrate all of us despite our broken hearts, despite the tears we may continue to shed for those whom we have lost. It could be decades. Perhaps there will be moments we will still shed a tear. Nonetheless, my friends, we come here to celebrate that our Lord is victor over death. You and I, and those buried in this cemetery, and all who believed in Him received the seeds of eternal life on this altar.
How awesome a mystery, a mystery for which there are no words to describe. My friends, when we come here to the altar of God, we come in grace through the power of the Holy Spirit to Calvary. We come here and we enter into the one mystery of the Lord’s death and resurrection in which our deaths have hope, and those who have died have the promise of eternal life. We come here so that we may share in the victory of the Lord over death in His resurrection. What happened seemingly 2,000 years ago is alive and real here in our midst.
Each time we come to pray and each time we receive His sacred body, blood, soul, and divinity, we are given that share of everlasting life. There are no words to describe it, nor should there be, for we are describing the very life of God in us.
When mass ends, for those of you who are able, we will have two processions. The first, I invite all of you to join, which is a simple procession around the circle. Here, it will last no more than six or seven minutes. But for those of you who have the strength and the willingness, I invite you to join me as we will bring the Eucharistic Lord throughout this entire cemetery for about 45 minutes. We will walk all four of its corners.
And if you can come, my friends, join me in song, for the Lord is walking in the garden of life. He is reminding those who sleep in this place that He has given them the seeds of eternal life, that the day will come when they will hear His voice, and they will rise from these graves, and they will have the fullness of the promise of life. Body, soul, and spirit, healed, glorified, risen to take their place in the glory of everlasting life in heaven.
We will walk among the dead to whisper to them that they are dead for a time. They sleep for just a season, but they will live. Why? Because they ate of his body and drank of his blood, and know that He will keep His promise that they shall never die forever. May the Lord, may the risen Lord, may the crucified Lord, may the Lord of the Eucharist be praised now and forever. Amen.