This time of year, our thoughts turn more and more to the place we call home. Holidays are coming up. There are gatherings around the family table. Home is our destination again and again. We’re drawn to the bright light that offers us comfort and warmth, especially during this cold part of the year.

But home, as I indicated, is not just brick and mortar. It is also people. It is the arms that hold you. The shoulders you lean on. The people who share your joys and your tears — the ones who pray with you and for you, even after you are gone. 

We are all a part of that – a community, a communion. Yesterday, we celebrated the communion of saints. Today, we honor a communion of souls. 

Many are closer than we realize. Just think about it. They are in the stories we tell, and the jokes we share. They are in the recipes we’ve saved, advice we’ve remembered, shortcuts we’ve taken, ornaments we’ve wrapped in tissue and saved to hang on the tree.

They are my mother and father. They are our neighbors and friends. They are parishioners we all knew and loved.   

They are men like Deacon Jim Hynes, who was ordained with me and died earlier this year, much too soon and much too young.   

They are women like Sister Emmanuelle, known as France’s Mother Teresa, who helped countless people who were poor and suffering, and who died last month at the age of 99.   

They are people like Chiara Lubich, founder of the Focolare movement, who died last spring. She once said, “We should live in such a way that in our last hours we will not regret having loved too little.”   

These are among the souls we remember and pray for this day – our communion of souls. They are worth remembering, and cherishing, and celebrating.   

The Church refers to them as “the departed,” as if they were on a train that has left the station. Maybe that says it best. They have finished their earthly journey, and reached another destination.   

We hope that they made it safely.   

And we pray that one day we will join them, in that place of warmth and light, that place we all call home.

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