The Communion of Saints Found in the words of our Creed, we profess that we believe in “the Communion of Saints.” What does this mean? By: Bishop Francis I. Malone IT MAY SEEM rather strange to state that I have had the opportunity to be buried in four different places. The first place is New Cathedral Cemetery in Philadelphia. At first, this seemed best because my parents and grandparents are also buried there: nice thought that I would be buried near them. But it occurred to me that once I am buried, I would prefer to be buried in a place where, when people pass my grave, they recognize my name, and pray for me. I concluded a number of years ago that since I have spent most of my life in Arkansas, few people would know who I was, and I’d be missing out on a lot of prayers – on which, by the way, I am depending. The second place is called “Priest’s Circle.” It’s located in Calvary Cemetery in Little Rock. It’s well known to most of the Catholic community in central Arkansas, and I thought it would be visited often, and I was assured of prayers of visitors and the annual Mass that is prayed at Calvary each November 2. I also thought how nice it would be to be buried next to my uncle, Msgr. Bernard Malone. But then, as pastor of Christ the King Church in Little Rock, we built a Columbarium next to the adoration chapel, and what a perfect place to be inurned – along with the majority of those whom I pastored over the years. Certainly, I thought, this third place would be “it.” But upon arrival as bishop of Shreveport in January, I was taken by Father Mangum to the pre-designated burial garden for bishops, which already holds the earthly remains of our first bishop, William Friend, and told that the “next spot” was for me. Now, I am fully confident that this fourth place will be it – don’t forget me, please – confident I am that I’ll need all the prayers I can receive from visitors. These thoughts about my four possible burial plots are prompted by plans the Cathedral has to renovate the garden, 8 THE CATHOLIC CONNECTION
and I was respectfully asked for my input on the plans. How appropriate that these plans are being made as we approach the sacred month of November – thirty days of prayer each year for our beloved dead. We pray for them, first of all, because they may need our prayers as we read in the Book of Maccabees, “It is a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead.” But I think there is a more powerful driving force that makes this invitation to pray for them mean so much. Found in the words of our Creed, we profess that we believe in “the Communion of Saints.” What does this mean? Simply: we believe that once we are baptized, we are baptized “into” something, into the Body of Christ, into the Church, into a “communion” with all others who have been baptized, those who have been, by their baptism consecrated and set apart. Death separates us from one another physically, but it cannot separate us spiritually; the dead remain our brothers and sisters, our parents and grandparents, our relatives, and friends. How perfectly beautiful it is that November begins with a day in which we honor ALL of the Saints in heaven, followed by ALL those who follow them into eternal life, especially those in Purgatory, and those in need of our prayers. I never hesitate to tell people to pray for me when I die, but I also never hesitate to pray for those who have died and in whose communion all of us were baptized. November is a beautiful month, not only in the changing of nature around us, but in the reaffirmation that we – here on earth – still journeying to our eternal home, can by our prayers come that much closer to our brothers and sisters in the Communion of Saints. “May the souls of the faithful departed through the mercy of God rest in peace. Amen.”
