All Souls Day

Happy Feast of All Souls Day! It is known as Day of the Dead in Mexico. It is the commemoration of all the faithful departed, that is, the souls of all Christians who died but have not yet received salvation, who are currently in Purgatory. Souls that are not perfectly cleansed from venial sins, or who have not fully atoned for past transgressions, are excluded from the Beatific Vision. The faithful on earth can help them by offering prayers, alms, and especially by the sacrifice of the Mass. This is why we should make an effort to attend Mass and pray for all of the people we have lost.

On this day time should be spent in prayer for the souls of our loved ones as well as those who have no one who will pray for them. It is an honored tradition to visit the graves of our deceased offering prayers and to leave some mark of esteem, such as flowers, to adorn their graves. It is customary to clean tombs, decorate them, and light candles in memory of the dead. (Lighting of candles is more common in other countries.) My Grandmother took time each All Souls Day to tend to the graves of our family. We would clean off the headstones, clear away weeds, and bring fresh flowers to display. It would take us some time to complete these tasks so my Grandmother would pack along a small picnic for us to share. Once we were done we offered our prayers and went home listening to stories about the people we prayed for that day. Looking back, this tradition is a way to honor and remember our family.

While this may seem rather strange to many people because of the negative images cemeteries bring to mind, it was quite an education about life. Our modern view of cemeteries are often part ghost story and part reminder of our own mortality. A whole film industry genre was created from spooky ghost tales of the dead and where best to set a story than inside a graveyard. As Catholics it’s time to bring back the very normal practice of visiting the graves of our family and praying for them.

To keep to my family’s tradition we visited a local cemetery to offer prayers. Our families are not buried in this state so we pray for them from afar and for the people in the cemetery we visited. This particular cemetery as many in Northern Virginia have been in use for hundreds of years. We read many gravestones of fallen Civil War soldiers. The children were affected most by seeing so many babies and children who were lost. It opened up some discussion on mortality. We said some prayers and made our way home with thoughts of the finality of life.

-Memento Mori-

A good prayer for this day is the Prayer Of St. Gertrude The Great “Eternal Father, I offer thee the most precious blood of thy Divine Son, Jesus, in union with the Masses said throughout the world today, for all the Holy Souls in Purgatory, for sinners everywhere, for sinners in the universal church, those in my home and within my family.  Amen.”