The Candle That Refuses To Go Out

Title: The Candle That Refuses to Go Out

Intro: It is not just about remembering the dead, it is about keeping love alive when everything else has gone.

Scripture: Luke 19:1-10

Reflection

Dear Friends,

My grandmother kept a small wooden box on her dresser, the kind with a brass latch that clicked when you opened it. Inside were holy cards, rosary beads, and a list of names written in her careful handwriting, people she prayed for every November 2. When I asked her about it as a child, she said, “These are the ones I carry with me, the ones who taught me how to love.” Years after she passed, I found that box again, and her name was now on someone else’s list. That is when I understood what All Souls Day really means, it is not just about remembering the dead, it is about keeping love alive when everything else has gone.

November 2 arrives quietly each year, but it carries weight. The Church calls it All Souls Day, a moment set apart to pray for those who have died, to lift them toward God’s light. It is not a sad obligation or a gloomy ritual. It is an act of stubborn hope, a refusal to believe that death gets the last word. Scripture tells us in 2 Maccabees 12:46 that “it is a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from sins.” This is not about fear or duty, it is about love reaching across the divide, trusting that God’s mercy stretches farther than we can imagine.

I think about the people on my grandmother’s list. Some I knew, others were just names, but she prayed for them all. She would light a candle in the kitchen window every November, and the flame would dance against the glass as evening fell. She said it was a reminder that no one is truly gone, that we are all part of one unbroken story. That candle became my image of All Souls Day, a small light refusing to go out in the dark, a sign that love does not end when the heart stops beating.

Walking through cemeteries this time of year, you see it everywhere. Fresh flowers lean against old stones. Candles flicker in glass jars. A woman kneels in the wet grass, whispering names only she remembers. These are not empty gestures. They are prayers made visible, love made tangible. Romans 6:4 promises us that “as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” When we pray for the dead, we are trusting that promise for them, believing they are walking toward a light we cannot yet see but somehow know is real.

A friend once told me that losing his father felt like losing his balance. Everything tilted, and he did not know how to stand upright again. Then All Souls Day came, and he found himself at his father’s grave, hands empty, heart full. He did not have fancy words or perfect prayers, just memories and ache and a quiet hope that his father was somewhere safe. He remembered the words from Wisdom 3:1-3: “The souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and no torment will ever touch them.” It did not fix the grief, but it gave it somewhere to rest, a place to be held.

That is what this day offers, not answers, but presence. Not explanations, but companionship in our longing. We gather our dead close, speak their names aloud, trust them to God’s hands. We do not pretend it does not hurt. We do not rush past the loss. Instead, we let grief and hope sit together like old friends, knowing they belong to the same story.

When I light my candle now, I think of my grandmother’s list, the names written in fading ink. I add my own names to the prayer, family, friends, strangers whose paths crossed mine briefly but left a mark. I think of John 11:25, where Jesus says, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live.” That promise is not someday or maybe. It is now, it is real, it is for everyone we have loved and lost.

All Souls Day reminds us that memory becomes treasure when we refuse to let go of love. The veil between heaven and earth grows thin, and for a moment we feel it, that connection, that closeness, that certainty that death is not the end. We are all candles in the dark, small flames that refuse to go out, holding light for each other until we are all gathered home.

May the heart of Jesus, live in the hearts of all. Amen…