Nov. 2: Remembering Our Beloved Dead & All Who Have Passed On to New Life

Today, Nov. 2 is a special day for remembering our beloved dead and all who have passed on to new life on our Great Journey. We pray for saints and sinners, everyday heroines and heroes, family members and those who have no one to pray for them. The following glimpse of an interview related to life and death will find a home in the hearts of many of us. (Tom Berry, my incomparable friend-mentor-priest was interviewed by Mary Judith Ress for the eco-feminist magazine Con-spirando, in 1994).

Responding to where he would be in 50 years, Tom indicates that he will be where he has always been. Continuing, he explains:

"Each of us is as old as the universe and experiences our greater self in the larger story of the universe. So we are as old as the universe and as big as the universe. That is our great self. We survive in our great self. Our particular manifestation is distinct from our universal presence to the total process. We exist externally in our participation in the universe's existence."

Regarding immortality, Tom notes:

"The universe itself is the comprehensive mode of existence--everything exists in relationship to the universe. Everything participates in everything that happens in the universe. Therefore we never cease to be a participant in the universe. Everything we do will have consequences that will go on forever. There is a way in which we exist individually as a dimension of the totality of things and as an influence on everything that to some extent governs what came before us and everything that will come after."

Tom's inclusive vision gives us much food for thought. For one thing it helps us to be grateful for our loved ones, ourselves and everyone else. We are all historically irreplaceable on the Great Journey as we continue to stretch, to self-transcend and to develop on our Great Journey toward community and self-fulfillment lured on by Loving Mystery. Our beloved dead and ourselves are still on this Great Journey together.