“Pray as though everything depended on God. Work as though everything depended on you.”
— St. Augustine
Today is All Saints Day. Today the Church celebrates all its Saints, known and unknown. May all follow in their footsteps, and seek the Lord’s will, so that we may one day join the Saints in heaven.
“We believe that Jesus died and rose again, so we believe, that God will bring with Jesus,
those who have died, believing in him . . . .”
–1 Thessalonians 4:14
“The whole Church observes this practice which was handed down by the Fathers –that it prays for those who have died
in the communion of the Body and Blood of Christ, when they are commemorated in their own place in the sacrifice itself
and the sacrifice is offered, also in memory of them, on their behalf.”
–St. Augustine
Remember, Lord, those who have died and gone before us marked with the sign of faith, especially those for whom we now pray. May these and all who sleep in Christ find in Your presence light, happiness and peace. Through Christ our Lord, Amen.
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Today is the Feast of All Saints’, which once again takes precedence over the Twenty-second Sunday after Trinity.
On the Feast of All Saints, we rejoice in the Communion of Saints, an article of faith that we profess in the Apostles’ Creed. We commemorate not only those Saints whose names are recorded in the Church kalendar, but also the countless men and women known only to God whose lives were transformed by the grace of Christ and through whom His divine light shone forth. We remember especially the holy Martyrs, who bore witness to their unwavering faith in Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Son of God, even unto death.
The Church recognizes that certain men and women have lived lives of extraordinary holiness, manifesting in a remarkable way the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity. Many were initially venerated by the local Christian communities that had witnessed their holiness, and gradually their recognition spread throughout the wider Church. Through their cooperation with divine grace, their struggle against the passions, and their perseverance in the practice of virtue, they became increasingly conformed to the image of Christ. Their sanctity was not simply the achievement of human effort, but the triumph of God’s grace working within them.
The Saints inspire us to become better Christians. We can almost always find among them someone whose temperament, personality, or circumstances resemble our own. When we read their lives and discover how they confronted temptation, endured adversity, and overcame their weaknesses, we gain valuable insight into our own spiritual struggles. Their lives remind us that holiness is not reserved for a select few, but is the vocation of every baptized Christian.
Yet the Saints are more than inspiring examples. They are also our heavenly advocates and intercessors. Having completed their earthly pilgrimage, they remain united to us in the one Body of Christ. Death has not severed the bonds of charity that unite the members of His Church. Indeed, their love for us has been perfected through their communion with Christ. They continue to pray for us, and their intercessions are powerful expressions of that love. As the Apostle James reminds us: The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. We should therefore seek the prayers of the Saints, as well as the protection and assistance of our guardian angel, particularly when confronting temptation or struggling against our besetting sins.
The Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed, commonly called All Souls’ Day, follows immediately upon the Feast of All Saints. Over the centuries, these two observances have become closely associated, reminding us of the Church’s enduring communion in Christ, a communion that death itself cannot destroy. On All Saints’ Day, we celebrate those whose holiness has been manifested and whom the Church honours as victorious in Christ. On All Souls’ Day, we remember all the faithful departed, especially our own loved ones, commending them to the mercy of God and praying that they may be brought to the fullness of life in His presence.
The Church has always understood such prayers as an expression of Christian charity. Scripture exhorts us to bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ. This obligation of love does not cease with the death of those dear to us. Just as we prayed for them during their earthly lives, so we continue to commend them to God through our prayers, almsgiving, and especially through the offering of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass on their behalf.
The Requiem Mass takes its name from the Latin word requiem, meaning “rest.” Its ancient Introit draws upon the language of IV Esdras, which exhorts the faithful to look for their Shepherd and promises the reward of His kingdom:
Look for your Shepherd, he shall give you everlasting rest; for he is nigh at hand, that shall come in the end of the world. Be ready to the reward of the kingdom, for the everlasting light shall shine upon you for evermore.
The Introit of the Requiem Mass gives beautiful expression to the Church’s prayer for the departed: Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine: et lux perpetua luceat eis. “Rest eternal grant unto them, O Lord, and let light perpetual shine upon them.”
In these familiar words, we ask that the departed may find their rest in Christ, that His divine light may dispel every remaining darkness, and that, through His mercy, they may be prepared for the fullness of communion with Him. This prayer looks beyond the intermediate state to the great hope of the Christian faith: the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. For the destiny of the Christian is not merely the survival of the soul after death, but the resurrection and transfiguration of the whole person in Christ.
The Feasts of All Saints and All Souls are therefore a wonderful and fitting part of the Church kalendar. Together they remind us that the Church is not confined to those who are presently living upon earth. We belong to a communion that transcends death, united in the one Body of Christ. We rejoice with the Saints who have finished their earthly course, we pray for the faithful departed who await the consummation of God’s promises, and we are reminded of our own mortality and the necessity of persevering in faith, hope, and charity.
Above all, these two observances direct our attention to Christ Himself, who by His death has conquered death, and by His Resurrection has opened to us the way of everlasting life. In Him, the living and the departed are united, and in Him we await the glorious day when God shall be all in all.
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What the Pope Didn’t Say About Marriage
BY: Bryan J. Dickerson.
Last week, Pope Leo XIV spoke on the topic of marriage and family as part of his ongoing series of Weekly Audiences about the documents of the Second Vatican Council. It was an important message needed in these turbulent times. What he did not say is equally important.
On Wednesday, 21 October 2026, Pope Leo XIV continued his discussion of Gaudium et Spes (The Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World) by focusing on the provisions pertaining to marriage and family. The importance of the family is well-documented in Holy Scripture and Church teachings. In Gaudium et Spes, the Second Vatican Council again reiterated the importance of marriage and family to society and the Church.
In his talk, the Pope emphasized that marriage is the total, mutual giving and love between a man and a woman. “The mutual self-giving of man and woman, such that ‘they are no longer two but one flesh’ (Mt 19:6), underlies the requirement for “total fidelity” and the “unbreakable oneness” of the spouses, finding vivid expression in the procreation and upbringing of children,” the Pope said.
Building upon this notion, the Pope continued:
“Having shed light on the reality of marriage in the light of Christ’s love, which is the truth of both human and divine love, Gaudium et Spes turns its attention to conjugal love and marital fruitfulness. Not limited to erotic attraction, which it nonetheless encompasses, conjugal love involves the entire will of the spouses, enlivening the affections of their hearts and expressing itself through sentiments and gestures of tenderness (cf. GS, 49). Embracing the good of the whole person of both man and woman, who are equal in dignity, this love pervades the entire life of the spouses, finding expression in acts proper exclusively to marriage (cf. ibid.). Whilst signifying integral love from person to person, the unique intimacy between the spouses fosters their mutual self-giving and enriches their shared joy (cf. ibid.).”
Pope Leo XIV reiterated the importance of procreating and raising children within the family. “Furthermore, the fruitfulness of conjugal love is expressed in the procreation of children, “the supreme gift of marriage” (GS, 50),” he said. He also emphasized the sanctity of human life from conception and denounced infanticide and abortion.
Pope Leo XIV’s words on marriage and family are important and necessary in our day and age. What he did not say is also important and necessary. In discussing marriage and family, not once did the Pope mention “man and man” or “woman and woman.” The Church has always taught that marriage is between a man and a woman. Gaudium et Spes reinforced that teaching and Pope Leo XIV did so as well, though without explicitly rejecting same sex marriage.
The Second Vatican Council occurred over 60 years ago, but its teachings are no less important today. Its teachings on marriage and the family are most especially relevant and important today as we have witnessed an unrelenting assault upon marriage and the family since the 1960s. Divorce, abortion, adultery, pornography, drugs, alcohol abuse, physical abuse, all of these and more seek to destroy the family and fragment its members. “The family especially is under attack. And the sacred character of human life denied,” Pope St. John Paul II declared at World Youth Day 1993 in Colorado.
“The final battle between the Lord and the kingdom of Satan will be about Marriage and the Family,” Sister Lucia de los Santos, the last remaining Fatima seer, wrote in a March 1981 letter to Cardinal Carlo Caffara. “Don’t be afraid, because whoever works for the sanctity of Marriage and the Family will always be fought against and opposed in every way, because this is the decisive issue. Nevertheless, our Lady has already crushed the serpent’s head.”
Society has sought to redefine marriage in terms contrary to the teachings of the Church, Holy Scripture and the nature of God’s Creation. Numerous governments have legalized same sex marriage. Even some Christian denominations including the United Church of Christ, the United Methodist Church and the Presbyterian Church USA support same sex marriages – though the Bible expressly and unequivocally states that marriage is between a man and a woman (see Matthew 19:6 in particular). Sadly, some members of our own Catholic Church have fallen victim to these false notions of marriage and family and the nature of humanity. Let us pray that the Holy Spirit will purge our Church of such false notions and guide our society back to God’s intention for humanity and marriage and the family.
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The Sin of Complaining
BY: Lauren Giordano
To define a happy life would be one who experiences satisfaction. That is not to say one’s circumstances are perfect, or even ideal, but they accept their station and find satisfaction in it. This could be their job or vocation, their location, or their work to reward ratio. Whatever it is, it sustains them and nourishes them. They find a rightly ordered pleasure in the very art of living. This is, what I believe, all humans strive for on some level. We want to be happy, which is to feel satisfied with our decisions and surroundings.
Accepting the bad with the good, understanding the course of actions on our part or others around us, and feeling a certain gratitude for what we get to experience in this world will determine our satisfaction. Yet, so many people around me complain incessantly about life. They grumble about traffic, their boss, their spouse or children; a multitude of their experiences leave them feeling unsatisfied. And certainly, many things in life are unsatisfactory and imperfect. But, are we sinning by complaining about them? I posit: yes.
Let us examine what it means to complain.
We state that an outcome is not what we expected or hoped for.
We believe that someone should have acted better than they did.
We harbor negative emotions toward something or someone who didn’t meet our expectations.
We relay these feelings to others.
Taking the criteria one at a time, we can evaluate each of these descriptions to find the root of the nuisance of complaint.
When we complain about an outcome that isn’t what we desired, perhaps we do not have eyes to see. Perhaps we should remove the proverbial log. All of the choices we make lead us to each moment in our lives. We must maintain some accountability for our actions. If we are upset that traffic made us late, we should recognize that we could have simply left earlier. If we expected an opportunity to bear fruit and it did not, maybe we didn’t put the effort in that was required. And if we are keen to produce a diatribe against another, it would behoove us to remember that there certainly exists another soul who could do the same about us.
We mustn’t have any other gods, yet we regularly place other things of this world above God in that we believe we can control them outside of God. As the unmoved mover, it is God who moves the world through His touch. Perhaps we should consider that we are not all-knowing and the outcome we desired was not in God’s plan. Even if it was a truly good thing, it may not be what produces fruit in the long term. We do not determine the future, we cooperate with God to walk in the way of salvation.
When we complain of others, we strip them of their dignity. God breathed life into each and every person and loves them unconditionally, no matter their faults. He always wants them to do good, abide by His commands, and live a life through His grace. He gave us free will to choose these yet we all fall short. To condemn another for exercising their free will is to ignore the crux of a divinely created world. To expect perfection from a broken person in a broken world is to set oneself up for disappointment, it is to lift up the pride in oneself. None of us is above another, yet we naturally elevate ourselves above others based on what we believe we can control: wealth, status, and dignity. But all humans are persons born with dignity simply because they are made through Christ in the image and likeness of God. Why do we think we could, or would, do better than another and speak bitterly of them? Pride is inflating our ego to coerce us into believing we are better than them for not making the mistake they have made. This logic is in error and a danger to our soul.
To complain harbors negative feelings which leads to anger. Now, there are two types of anger-one that is sinful and one that is not. The difference lies in what you are angry about and how you react to the anger you are feeling. We can feel righteous anger which is properly ordered and justified, but this can still lead us into further sin. Being angry that others are persecuted is reasonable and just. Being angry that a restaurant mismanaged your dining order is not.
A natural inclination of the broken state of humanity is to find a level bottom. Just like water which settles at the lowest point, when we feel hurt or wronged we tend to draw others down into the depths of our anguish. This is one way we feel seen and heard. And this tendency opens the door to gossip. We start by sharing (complaining) about an issue, and in an effort to find validation in another’s eyes, we tempt a friend to speculate, conspire, and breed a sense of distaste towards whoever or whatever has bothered us. Misery loves company, and we are sinning against our brothers and sisters when we move them toward the disordered state in which we find ourselves.
God gave us an intellect that begets accountability for our choices and our actions. We should aim to reconcile ourselves to Christ, we should always be yearning for communion in the Holy Spirit, so why do we so often complain? Christ incarnate became man and quite literally pitched His tent among us. He suffered for us, yet when we suffer, we cry and moan and grumble that it’s unfair. We must strive to be a temple for the Holy Spirit. We must model the Blessed Mother’s humility and obedience. And we must answer the second greatest commandment Christ himself gave, “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:39) Give it the best you’ve got and let God take care of the rest.
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Has Noah’s ark been found? Explosive claims ignite debate
BY: Billy Hallowell, The Washington Times (October 22, 2026).
Have the remains of Noah’s ark been found? That’s the explosive question sparking widespread debate in theological circles and on social media after a group of researchers claimed to have uncovered a boat-shaped structure underground near a mountainous region in Turkey.
The account of God sending rain on the Earth for 40 days and 40 nights is one of the Bible’s most famous stories, as the sins of man were so profoundly dreadful that the Lord wiped out all of humanity aside from Noah, his family and two of every kind of wild animal and creature.
“You are to bring into the ark two of all living creatures, male and female, to keep them alive with you,” God told Noah in Genesis 6:19 (NIV), with verse 20 continuing, “Two of every kind of bird, of every kind of animal and of every kind of creature that moves along the ground will come to you to be kept alive.”
Noah, who was in the ark with family members and these animals for about 370 days, listened to God’s prompts after spending decades building the boat. After the rains and waters tamed, Genesis notes that the “ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat” (Genesis 8:4).
For centuries, people have searched for the ark’s remains, hoping to find physical evidence to corroborate the biblical narrative. While numerous areas have been explored over the years, Turkish Army Capt. İlhan Durupinar located a spot in eastern Turkey near Mount Ararat in 1959 that has since become a focal point.
In aerial photos, Capt. Durupinar saw what resembled a “boat-shaped formation.” Later, from the 1970s through the 1990s, researcher Ron Wyatt, among others, intensified that research.
Given the biblical narrative that the ark rested on the “mountains of Ararat,” some believed the so-called Durupinar site was the potential resting place. But after much debate and analysis, many critics concluded that the shape was a natural geological formation, not the ark.
Despite endless debate and dismissals over the location, Noah’s Ark Scans, an organization of people interested in exploring the Durupinar site, has been making headlines over new research its founder says could prove the spot does, indeed, host the remains of Noah’s ark.
Andrew Jones and his Noah’s Ark Scans team believe the site is very likely the location of the ark, and he told me last year about barriers that have delayed a full analysis of the underground structure.
“We are just as interested as anyone else in either proving or disproving what this site is,” he said at the time. “There’s many factors involved — some are politics, so this is Eastern Turkey. You do have issues out there that could affect doing scientific work. Then, you have religious issues.
“If you’re going to pursue a scientific investigation to this site, you have to work with a local university, which means you need to find a university and professors who are willing to put their career on the line looking for Noah’s ark, which, even for Islamic scholars, that could be a problem. People think you’re crazy, looking for something like this. And so, yeah, it’s very difficult.”
Flash-forward a year, and Mr. Jones and his team have made major strides in probing the area. Earlier this year, they secured a permit from the Turkish government to dig, and they are collaborating with a Turkish university and professor — requirements for any such expedition.
Regardless of whether people believe Mr. Jones’ contentions about the Durupinar site, it’s remarkable his team was able to rally university support and funding for the expedition.
In recent days, Noah’s Ark Scans continued to make waves, claiming that a “major ground-penetrating radar survey” in 2019 found “right-angles, linear features and other anomalies several meters down.” Mr. Jones also said there’s also evidence of a tunnel and organized patterns inside the supposed structure.
“In 2026, Khrosrow Bakhtar and BakhtarRadar confirmed this same massive tunnel that runs dead center through the formation, with organized patterns, corridors and three layers,” his team wrote in a recent social media update. “He said the structure beneath the surface was ‘extraordinary.’”
The team is continuing to pursue further testing and third-party laboratory testing.
Meanwhile, critics continue to urge caution, maintaining that the underground area could simply be a natural formation.
Others urge Christians and others to wait for additional details and tests before reaching a definitive conclusion.
Regardless of what happens, the natural intrigue is fascinating and comes at a time when many archaeological discoveries have corroborated the Bible. There’s no doubt that finding Noah’s ark would ignite an avalanche of theological, political — and eternal — questions.
Is it possible Mr. Jones is on to something? We’ll have to wait and see. But the media attention and infatuation show there’s a real appetite for finding the vessel that has captivated mankind for centuries.
GFK
