Rains begin on All Souls Day

They told me that there was rain before my arrival last week, but since I set foot in Rome, the skies have been a limpid blue, the air very fresh and at times icy, the sun bright. Today, however, there was a big change in the weather. The skies remained dark all morning, and by early afternoon we were treated to a storm. The rain continued to pour for the rest of the day, until well after nightfall.

This is All Souls Day. The day is observed with great seriousness each year, and at the University all the communities came together to pray for the dead in the evening at 19.15.

The prayer service consisted in a reading from Sacred Scripture and from the Constitutions of the Salesian Society, followed by a decade of the rosary with the Glorious Mysteries. A powerpoint gave the words for a hymn, and then with each Ave Maria, there was a slide with a photograph of a Salesian of the university who had died, beginning with don Ugo Gallizia, who died on 5 September 1963 while preparing to defend his doctoral thesis. He was to head up the Latin School at the UPS, but died before the university buildings were completed. After don Ugo, the names were presented one at a time, moving forward in time. This was repeated for each decade: Scripture, Constitutions, Hymn, decade of the rosary with the photographs of the deceased.

The first one that I knew was Signor Francesco Milani (†10 September 1991). His name came with the second Ave of the third decade. The Salesian from the first Ave of that decade — Bernardus Van Hagens — died on 25 September 1990 and was buried the day that I arrived as a graduate student in Rome, 27 September 1990.

When I was young, these All Souls Day prayer services, even back in my parish at Savio in Bellflower, were poignant, but more a curiousity for me. Now that I know 34 Salesians of this university who have died and whose photos I saw presented as we prayed… well, it takes on a more personal tone. And of course I thought of the Salesians of my own province, all of whom I know either from personal contact since I was 4 years old, or from the stories told to me by my teachers and pastors during my boyhood years. I pictured them as well as my deceased family members and friends in my mind as the university community prayed and sang tonight.

Sigh. But if we have all of November to remember those who have died, tonight's service was a beatiful motivator to do just that.