November is a wonderful month. It starts out with All Saints and All Souls Day!
On All Saints Day we celebrate all the Saints in Heaven who are not known! We have a calendar of known Saints, but everyone in Heaven is a Saint, so on this day we remember all of them, known and unknown!
All Souls the next day reminds us to pray for all who died, especially those who have no one to pray for them. Often there are prayers and even Mass at the parish or Catholic cemetery to pray for our loved ones who have gone before us!
Catholic.org has this to help understand All Souls Day:
The Roman Catholic celebration is associated with the doctrine that the souls of the faithful who at death have not been cleansed from the temporal punishment due to venial sins and from attachment to mortal sins cannot immediately attain the beatific vision in heaven, and that they may be helped to do so by prayer and by the sacrifice of the Mass (see Purgatory).[1] In other words, when they died, they had not yet attained full sanctification and moral perfection, a requirement for entrance into Heaven. This sanctification is carried out posthumously in Purgatory.
This is a good month to pray for friends and family who have died and if they are already in Heaven then God can apply those prayers to someone who still needs them!
In November we have a week dedicated to Consecrated Life! I love that it is in the same month as All Saints and All Souls! The Saints of course inspire us to strive for perfection in Christ and to be a visible sign that helps people to see and witness the love of Christ! While we pray for the souls in purgatory they in turn can pray for us, too.
I feel Christ is calling me and other women to live Consecrated Life as an Apostolic Religious Community where we serve children in need. In time I hope to have permission to wear a habit. The gray for Our Blessed Mother and Rose for joyfulness which many of these children have not experienced. The joy of Jesus is very much needed for them! At the moment we are still at the beginning stages!
An exert on Religious Life from CMSWR:
Apostolic religious life is a form of consecrated life within the Church wherein the members profess vows of chastity, poverty and obedience within a Congregation or Community approved by the Church. Shared community life is an integral part of this form of consecrated life. In professing vows and living within community, the members individually and as a whole witness to a life of communion with Christ, the Church, and one another.
Apostolic religious congregations develop their own traditions based on the original vision of their founders or foundresses, while continuing to focus their ministries to meet the needs of the Church today. While every religious congregation is unique, together they form a rich source of inspiration for the entire Church.
In his Apostolic Exhortation, Vita Consecrata, Pope John Paul II described the apostolic religious communities as “a splendid and varied testimony, reflecting the multiplicity of gifts bestowed by God on founders and foundresses who, in openness to the working of the Holy Spirit, successfully interpreted the signs of the times and responded wisely to new needs. Following in their footsteps, many other people have sought by word and deed to embody the Gospel in their own lives, bringing anew to their own times the living presence of Jesus, the Consecrated One par excellence, the One sent by the Father. In every age consecrated men and women must continue to be images of Christ the Lord, fostering through prayer a profound communion of mind with him (cf. Phil 2:5-11), so that their whole lives may be penetrated by an apostolic spirit and their apostolic work with contemplation.
In this month of Thanksgiving I am thankful for the gift of my faith, the Sacraments, my vocation, my family and friends, the children God has allowed me to serve.
Have a beautiful month of November!