At the Edge of November: Among the Dead, Awaiting the Dawn

November dies hard in the North. In rural upstate New York—where I now find myself spending long stretches of time for a project that has unexpectedly become something of a spiritual retreat—the land turns austere. The trees stand stripped to their bones, the ground stiffens under frost, and the air itself feels thin, as if the world were exhaling its last breath before winter’s long hush. Out here, silence does not merely fall; it descends, settling over the hills like a burial shroud.

It is fitting that Holy Mother Church has long dedicated this month to the Poor Souls—those forgotten, suffering spirits in Purgatory who await the full vision of God. As November draws to a close, one feels their nearness more keenly. The forests seem haunted, not with terror but with memory. Every gust through the branches whispers of our ancestors who walked these same cold paths, who lived, dreamed, and died as we will. The liturgical calendar and the natural world speak with one voice: memento mori. Remember death, so that you may remember life rightly.

The Church does not flinch before the presence of the dead. She prays for them, intercedes for them, acknowledges their plight and their dignity. In this way, we remain a people bound not only by blood but by the mystery of the Communion of Saints. We live with the dead; our ancestors walk beside us always. And as the month of the dead approaches its final dusk, the heart is called to introspection. What have we done for those who can no longer help themselves? What have we done to prepare our own souls for the judgment that awaits?

Advent breaks upon the horizon—a new liturgical year, a new beginning, born from darkness. Before the angelic trumpets and shepherds’ glad cries of Christmas, before the candles blaze and the Gloria returns to our lips, there is a period of deliberate austerity. Advent is not a premature Christmas, no matter how our culture insists on decking the halls in early November. It is a penitential season, a time of watchfulness, of holy longing. It is the night vigil before the dawn.

No one loves Christmas more than I do, but to skip Advent is to ignore the aching silence that makes the Incarnation thunderous. To rush into celebration is to forget the weight of history, the groaning of humanity awaiting its Redeemer. The Church, in her wisdom, asks us first to sit with the dead, with our own mortality, and with the humility of expectation. Only then can we truly grasp the miracle of God made flesh.

And so, as November ends and Advent begins, we do well to pause. To pray for the forgotten souls. To remember the ancestors whose faith shaped our own. To let the starkness of the season carve away our illusions. To stand in the cold, beneath the bare trees, and feel the nearness of both the grave and the manger.

For in this dark threshold between seasons, the veil grows thin, and eternity draws close. Here, surrounded by the memories of the dead and the promise of a coming Savior, the soul learns again how to hope.

~ By Giovanni di Napoli, November 29th, the Vigil of Saint Andrew the Apostle and Feast of St. Saturninus of Toulouse