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This Sunday, 2 November, we celebrate the Feast of All Souls and these four weeks of November are named as the month of the Holy Souls.

In these days we make time to remember those who have died. We pray for those whom we have loved in life on earth. We pray for those who have loved us. We also remember those who have no one to remember them.

I am thinking of a couple of people in particular as I mark this feast both are now in God’s kind keeping until the day of resurrection. I miss them.

It is traditional to take time in November to visit the graves of our loved ones. The image above is of my parents’ grave, and the green cross rested on my father’s coffin during his Funeral Mass.

Pope Benedict reflected beautifully on the practice of visiting cemeteries in the month of November a few years ago. You might recognise this quotation since I’ve used it here before – but I share it again because I have never heard it said better:

“…the Church invites us to commemorate all the faithful departed, to turn our eyes to the many faces who have gone before us and who have ended their earthly journey…during these days we go to the cemetery to pray for the loved ones who have left us, as it were paying a visit to show them, once more, our love, to feel them still close, remembering also, and article of the creed: in the communion of saints there is a close bond between us who are still walking here upon the earth and those many brothers and sisters who have already entered eternity.

“Human beings have always cared for their dead and sought to give them a sort of second life through attention, care and affection, In a way, we want to preserve their experience of life; and paradoxically by looking at their graves, before which countless memories return, we remember how they lived, what they loved, what they feared, what they hoped for and what they hated, They are almost a mirror of their world.”  Pope Benedict XVI. All Souls Day 2011

This is also a good opportunity to teach children about our Christian confidence in death as the transition to the fulness of life. Children learn most easily with experience. To take children to the graves of friends and family is a sure and certain way to overcome their secular Halloween fears about a cemetery as a spooky place by teaching them about the cemetery as a place of Christian hope.

You might teach your children this simple and traditional prayer:

Eternal Rest grant to them/him/her O Lord
and let perpetual light shine upon them/him/her
May they/he/she rest in peace.
Amen

During this November month of the Holy Souls you might like to add the initials and perhaps a short sentence about a person you would like us to pray for. Visit the FFF PRAYER REQUESTS page at this link to add a name or any other prayer request.