All Souls at Arlington

Arlington National Cemetery /
Photo Credit: Sylvia Dorham

From Catholic Womanhood...

You’ve seen pictures of Arlington National Cemetery.

Acres of identical white stones, each a life snuffed out.

Every year on All Souls’ Day, I bundle a baseball team-worth of children into the van and take advantage of our proximity to the National Cemetery.

We meet many tourists.

We observe the players in the business of funerals.

We read the names on the stones.  Winnie.  Lucretta.  John.  Elmer.

We pass section 61, empty, and think about those who will soon fill it.

There are funerals in progress.

Gun salutes.

Uniforms.

Flags.

Pageantry.

Service personnel whose sole purpose in the military is to provide ceremony for the departed who have earned the right to have their mortal remains interred in Robert E. Lee’s backyard.

Everything is orchestrated, even the horses who pull the caisson, and the group of Harley- riders who roll, two by two behind the hearse of their departed companion.

Everyone has their job.

And so do we.

We have come to pray.

We recite the Rosary.

We wander into the far corners of the cemetery where tourists and mourners are sparse.

Two women are on their knees in the thick fescue, huddled in the shade of a headstone. 

We encounter no other intercessors.

We use the words Christ gave to St. Gertrude to release thousands from purgatory.

And still we are overwhelmed.

Arlington is a stark visual reminder of our race toward death.