Dominican Anniversaries of the Dead 2026

Title

Mind reading versus Self-Examination

Outline

I was listening to a class yesterday

The speaker pointed out that, on the one hand we think we know what is going on in another’s head, which is mind reading. We think we know the motives for their behavior and therefore we can judge it, while, on the other hand, we are often unaware of the stuff in our own head, the anxieties, true and false beliefs, and the like that are motivating our own behavior, including our response to the other.

Our readings today given us a countermeasure to that

Paul points out first that our we must focus our own minds on ourselves, whether we are living, and eventually dying, for the Lord. That is something we can control, and that is the purpose of Christ’s life and death. Then Paul goes on to point out that judgment of a fellow Christian is a taking over of God’s prerogative. And since it is a claim to enter someone else’s head a motives, it is an attempt to know what we cannot know and change what we cannot change. It is like what the monks of Mt Athos were doing to a fellow monk who got drunk daily. (Tell the story) It is like what Abba Moses refused to do when called to judgment of another monk.

Jesus says that he knows those “whom thou hast given me” and his prayer is that “they . . . may be with me where I am, to behold my glory.” He knows that such people “know that thou has sent me.” And he has made known God’s name to them so that “the love with which thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.” We can hold fast to the optimistic opinion that those who claim that Jesus has made known God’s name to them are indeed among such until they make a denial, until God’s love in us impels us to ask questions of the person that may disabuse them.

So when we think of the anniversary of Dominican or any other dead

First, we are optimistic about their being with Jesus and love by God unless they have denied such a relationship and even then we are hopeful that Jesus brought them to repentance at the last minute.

Second, while there are authorities in the Church and in the Order who must pass judgment and there is a requirement to report certain behaviors that may or may not require such a judgment as I well know from safe church trainings and observation of some Orders who have done poorly in this area, we should set out minds virtually all the time to the positive assumption about the motives of the living and state of the dead.

Thirdly, we can rejoice when thinking about the dead , for they are in the hands of a God who loves and plans good for them, indeed the love with which the Father loved the Son.

And that will keep many useless thoughts from our minds and instead give us the pleasant expectation of joining our deceased brothers and sisters , for we have put our stress on our own personal responsibility before our Lord.

The Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition Chapter 14

7 None of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. 8 If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. 9 For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living.

10 [Why do you pass judgment on your brother? Or you, why do you despise your brother?] For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of God; 11 for it is written,

“As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me,

and every tongue shall give praise to God.”

12 So each of us shall give account of himself to God.

John 17:

The Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition Chapter 17

24 “Father, I desire that they also, whom thou hast given me, may be with me where I am, to behold my glory which thou hast given me in thy love for me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, the world has not known thee, but I have known thee; and these know that thou hast sent me. I made known to them thy name, and I will make it known, that the love with which thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.”