November 2: All Souls Day

On All Souls Day, November 2, the church prays for all who have died that through the purifying mercy of God they will come to the share in the Lord's resurrection and enjoy the peace of God's reign forever.

The video here is the Kyrie from the Requiem Mass of Spanish composer and organist Tomás Luis de Victoria. The Kyrie is the original Greek of what we pray as "Lord have mercy... Christ have mercy..." The performance is by the Tallis Scholars.

While listening to the Kyrie you might want to remember and pray for family and friends who have died... November is often called the Month of All Souls so you might want to pray with this again in the days and weeks ahead.

The prayers from the Mass for All Souls Day tell us a lot about this day on the calendar:

Opening Prayer
Merciful Father,
hear our prayers and console us...
strengthen our hope
that all our departed brothers and sisters
will share in your Son's resurrection...

Prayer Over the Gifts
Accept these gifts
and receive our brothers and sisters
into the glory of your Son...

Closing Prayer
May this sacrifice wash away
the sins of our departed brothers and sisters
in the blood of Christ.
You cleansed them in the waters of baptism.
In your loving mercy grand them pardon and peace.

Go to Saint of the Day on the sidebar and then to November 2. Here's a snip from what you'll find there:

In the middle of the 11th century, St. Odilo, abbot of Cluny (France), decreed that all Cluniac monasteries offer special prayers and sing the Office for the Dead on November 2, the day after the feast of All Saints. The custom spread from Cluny and was finally adopted throughout the Roman Church...

The theological underpinning of the feast is the acknowledgment of human frailty. Since few people achieve perfection in this life but, rather, go to the grave still scarred with traces of sinfulness, some period of purification seems necessary before a soul comes face-to-face with God. The Council of Trent affirmed this purgatory state and insisted that the prayers of the living can speed the process of purification...

Whether or not one should pray for the dead is one of the great arguments which divide Christians. Appalled by the abuse of indulgences in the Church of his day, Martin Luther rejected the concept of purgatory. Yet prayer for a loved one is, for the believer, a way of erasing any distance, even death. In prayer we stand in God's presence in the company of someone we love, even if that person has gone before us into death...

“We must not make purgatory into a flaming concentration camp on the brink of hell—or even a ‘hell for a short time.’ It is blasphemous to think of it as a place where a petty God exacts the last pound—or ounce—of flesh.... St. Catherine of Genoa, a mystic of the 15th century, wrote that the ‘fire’ of purgatory is God’s love ‘burning’ the soul so that, at last, the soul is wholly aflame. It is the pain of wanting to be made totally worthy of One who is seen as infinitely lovable, the pain of desire for union that is now absolutely assured, but not yet fully tasted."

(Leonard Foley, O.F.M.)

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