Pope Leo XIV presided over the Holy Mass for the Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed this Monday, November 2, at the monumental Verano Cemetery in Rome, where he recalled that death does not break the communion between Christians and their deceased loved ones. In his homily, the Pontiff highlighted the importance of suffrage prayer, presented the Beatitudes as the path to eternal life, and prayed especially for those who have lost family members due to war.
During the celebration, which took place at 4:00 p.m. at the monumental entrance of the cemetery, Leo XIV recalled that Christians are called to live with the hope of the resurrection and trust in the promises of Christ. “With the prayer of suffrage we accompany our loved ones toward full communion with the Lord,” he affirmed.
The Holy Father also evoked Saint Francis of Assisi, on the eighth centenary of his death, and his teaching on the need to face the end of earthly life in friendship with God.
Below, we reproduce the complete homily of Leo XIV published by the Holy See:
Dear brothers and sisters:
We have gathered to celebrate the Eucharist in this place of prayer and memory, of affection and hope. We offer it in suffrage for the faithful departed, in particular for those who rest here and for those whom each of us carries in our hearts.
Commemorating the faithful departed on the day after the Solemnity of All Saints directs our prayer. We turn to the heavenly Father so that the life of holiness and beatitude, already enjoyed by so many of his sons and daughters, may envelop the souls of those who sleep the sleep of peace.
Our faith is illuminated by the Word that has been proclaimed and that increases our trust in the hands of God. These —the Book of Wisdom reminds us— are capable of effectively guarding the souls of the just: “No torment will ever touch them” (Wis 3:1). This is the promise of salvation that, especially on this day, becomes the heart of the supplication we raise to the Lord of life for all the faithful departed.
May his fatherly and sure hands guard them eternally, so that they may fully enjoy that reciprocal and vital belonging that the Lord promises to his people in the Book of Revelation: “They will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them as their God” (Rev 21:3). Our prayer intercedes so that this eternal communion of life may be realized, promised by the Good Shepherd to his sheep, who will never perish and no one will snatch them from his hand (cf. Jn 10:28).
Dear brothers and sisters, we have heard the Gospel of the Beatitudes (Mt 5:1-12). These are like the self-portrait of Jesus, which he himself places at the disposal of his disciples when he proclaims: “Blessed are you!” (v. 11). The Beatitudes are the path of full and fulfilled life, already now and for eternity. When we hear them proclaimed in the liturgy —we know— it is the risen Lord who speaks to us. And this announcement of salvation that the Beatitudes are resounds with particular spiritual force in a cemetery, which is like a threshold between the here and the hereafter, between earthly existence and what awaits us beyond. The risen Jesus tells us: blessed are those who live according to this path, because theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.
Among the eight Beatitudes of the Gospel of Matthew, there is one that touches us in a particular way today: “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted” (Mt 5:4). At this moment we want to pray for those who have recently lost a loved one; in particular, for those from whom they have been taken by the absurd violence of war. May the tears of so many mothers, so many children, so many elderly touch the consciences of those who have the power to silence the weapons!
On the eighth centenary of the death of Saint Francis of Assisi, the memory arises spontaneously of the “beatitude” that he added to the Canticle of the Creatures when he understood that his end was near: “Praised be you, my Lord, through our Sister Bodily Death, from whom no living man can escape. Woe to those who die in mortal sin! Blessed are those whom death will find in your most holy will, for the second death shall do them no harm.”
Dear brothers and sisters, faith in Christ tells us that our bond with the faithful departed is not interrupted, but transformed. With the prayer of suffrage we accompany our loved ones toward full communion with the Lord, that communion which we already truly taste here, in the sacrament of the Eucharist. Animated by this faith full of hope, let us continue our earthly journey, awaiting the day when He will wipe away every tear, when “death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away” (Rev 21:4).