A village head once dropped his favourite teacup. It broke into pieces. He cried like a child. His neighbours asked, “Why are you crying so much for a cup?”
The village head replied, “It was not just a cup. It was my companion during cold winters. It heard my thoughts. It survived many falls. It was a miracle of ceramics!”
“But it’s broken,” a neighbour said gently.
“I know,” said the village head, “but my heart hasn’t caught up yet.”
His friends pitied him and tried to cheer him up, but he refused to leave the cup. Later that day, an old priest from the parish was called. He held a prayer meeting for the cup and respectfully buried it.
The village head placed flowers around it and said, “Rest in pieces.”
Then he smiled. “Now I feel better.”
At first glance, the story seems comical. Why grieve so much for a cup? Yet hidden in its humour is a profound truth: human beings need to mourn, even for small things like a cup, a familiar home, or a withered tree in the garden. Mourning is a way of honouring what once gave us joy, comfort, or meaning. It is to honour the value they held in our lives.
Mourning is not a sign of weakness; it is part of being fully human. Scripture itself affirms the sacred place of mourning: “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted” (Matthew 5:4). Even Jesus, the Son of God, allowed Himself to weep at the tomb of His friend Lazarus (John 11:35), though He knew He would soon call him back to life. His tears remind us that grief is not a failure of faith but an expression of love.
Every year, on November 2, Catholics commemorate All Souls’ Day, a day dedicated to praying for the faithful departed. On this day, we visit cemeteries, light candles, and share stories of our loved ones who have passed away. These are not just acts of nostalgia or empty tradition but a sacred time to grieve communally and weave the loss into our life story with hope. We hold the unshakable hope of the resurrection, yet like Christ, we do not silence our sorrow. Mourning embraced with faith allows God’s healing to enter our souls.
This feast is deeply rooted in the Bible, the apostolic faith, and the timeless tradition of the Church. In the Old Testament, Judas Maccabeus offers prayers and sacrifices for the fallen soldiers “so that they might be delivered from their sins” (2 Maccabees 12:44–46). (In Protestant Bibles, this book was removed by Martin Luther.) In the New Testament, this practice is confirmed by St. Paul’s intercession for Onesiphorus, as seen in 2 Timothy 1:16–18, where he prays, “May the Lord grant him to find mercy… on that day.”
The practice is not a later medieval invention but part of the earliest Christian tradition. We find inscriptions in the Catacombs of Rome that beg prayers for the dead, as well as references to Christian offerings of prayers and Masses for the departed in the writings of Tertullian, around 200 A.D. These witnesses demonstrate that All Souls’ Day is not a novelty but an organic expression of the Church’s faith from its inception.
Communal mourning is universal and found in all cultures and religions. Grief needs ritual. Ritual helps process pain and loss, adjust to life without the lost object, and find a way to remember while moving forward. It transforms raw pain into meaning. Rituals are structured ways to channel mourning into healing. Ritual and prayer give language to our emotions.
Modern psychology confirms what Scripture and the saints have long known. Sigmund Freud says that “the work of mourning” is important because it involves slowly withdrawing emotional energy from the deceased and reinvesting it into life. Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs emphasizes the human need for connection, love, and meaning. Remembering the dead through communal rituals nurtures these needs. Viktor Frankl believes that the celebration of a feast like this helps transform personal grief into an act of hope, love, and solidarity.
This feast invites us to pause and mourn, just as Jesus did. In doing so, we become more fully human, more compassionate, and more open to God’s comfort, not to wallow, but to let grief do its hidden work: to cleanse, to heal, and to awaken us to the preciousness of life. To mourn a little is to acknowledge that life has changed, but it has not ended. Kahlil Gibran wrote, “The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.” Grief, paradoxically, enlarges the heart.
Our mourning is real, but it is suffused with the light of resurrection. Death does not have the final word; love does. “We do not grieve as others do who have no hope” (1 Thessalonians 4:13). We mourn fully knowing He will wipe away every tear from our eyes (Revelation 21:4). Today, join the entire Church Militant in lifting up the Church Suffering, asking God’s mercy to hasten their joy in heaven. And we do not hide our tears and grief but discover God within them.
