http://www.ewtn.com/library/FAMILY/TRAPP.TXTALL SOULS' DAY
Toward the end of the year, on November 2nd, the Church sets a day aside
which is devoted to the suffering souls in Purgatory. Just as we turn to
our big sisters and brothers, the saints, to intercede for us at the
throne of God, the poor souls are also turning toward us "Have pity on
me, have pity on me, at least you, my friends, because the hand of the
Lord has touched me" (Job 19:21; Office of the Dead). Helpless in
themselves, since the purification they are undergoing is passive
suffering, they can be helped by us. We can pray for them. We can offer
up sacrifices and good works with the desire that God may accept them
and, seeing in them the prayer and suffering rise from the Mystical Body
of His only Son, hasten the delivery of those souls whom He deems worthy
and ready for such help. On the day of "all the faithful departed" the
Church reminds her children to listen to the message of the Scriptures in
her liturgy and to do some thinking and meditating on Purgatory and the
holy souls there.
We know Purgatory is a realm of twilight, so to speak--an in-between
darkness and light, a place of regret and longing. Of the suffering which
is undergone there, we are told that it is bitter and great, that it
surpasses all imaginable suffering here on earth as an ocean surpasses a
little puddle.
A knowledge of Purgatory we find already in the Old Testament. Two
hundred years before Christ Judas Machabeus "making a gathering...sent
twelve thousand drachms of silver to Jerusalem for sacrifice to be
offered for the sins of the dead, thinking well and religiously
concerning the resurrection, (for if he had not hoped that they that were
slain should rise again, it would have seemed superfluous and vain to
pray for the dead); and because he considered that they who had fallen
asleep with godliness, had great grace laid up for them. It is,
therefore, a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they
may be loosed from their sins" (II Macc. 12:43-46).
All Souls' Day is a solemn day for families. We mothers must tell our
children again about the Communion of Saints, which functions in the same
way as life in a large family, where each member depends on the others.
In this case, the poor souls depend on us. They depend on our love, but
love does not consist in words only, it consists in deeds. The sooner the
little ones learn to understand this, the better it is for their whole
life. On All Souls' Day they will be encouraged to bring little
sacrifices, to say special prayers. They will be told about the
"thesaurus ecclesiae," the golden treasure chest of Holy Church filled
with the atoning sacrifice of Christ, the merits of the Blessed Virgin,
of the saints--canonized and uncanonized--into which we may delve. It was
given to Peter to bind and loosen, and his successor, making use of that
very power, sets the conditions under which this can be done. One such
disposition is the "toties quoties" indulgence each time we visit a
parish church on the second of November and say six "Our Fathers," six
"Hail Marys," and six "Glorys," we may gain a plenary indulgence
applicable to the poor souls.
All Souls' Day is also the date when we remind our children that on the
solemn day of their baptism the Church lit the baptismal candle and said:
"Receive this burning light and see thou guard the grace of thy baptism
without blame. Keep the Commandments of God so that when the Lord shall
come to call thee to the nuptials, thou mayst meet Him with all the
Saints in the heavenly court, there to live forever and ever." This
baptismal candle of our children we should wrap reverently and keep in a
special place together with our own. If, as happened to us, these candles
are no longer in the family (we could not take along such things from the
old country), one can take candles blessed on Candlemas Day, tie the
names of each child to a candle, and keep them in a special place. This
is what we did. Only Johannes, being born in this country, has his own
original baptismal candle. On All Souls' Day we take the candles out and
look at them and remind each other to light our candle for any of us in
case of sudden death, as a symbol that we want to die in our baptismal
innocence, that the light which was kindled at that solemn moment has not
been extinguished voluntarily by us. It is always a solemn moment when
the children are called to think of their parents' death.
In the old country the great event of the day used to be the visit to the
cemetery. First I have to describe an Austrian cemetery. Out in the
country every village has its cemetery around the church; bigger towns
have them on the outskirts. Every grave is a flower bed at the head of
which is a crucifix, sometimes of wrought iron, sometimes carved in wood.
Occasionally there are also tombstones. Families take care of their
graves individually. People who have moved elsewhere will pay the
cemetery keeper to do it for them. The German word for cemetery is
"Gottesacker," meaning "God's acre." In the summer it looks like a big
flower garden. People are constantly coming and going, working on their
graves, or just praying for their loved ones. On anniversaries you will
see vigil lights burning and on All Souls' Day every grave will have its
little vigil light as a token that we do remember. People will flock out
to the cemeteries in the early evening because it is such a sight--those
many, many flames and all the mounds covered with flowers. Slowly one
walks up and down the aisles, stopping at the graves of relatives and
friends to say a short prayer and sprinkle them with holy water.
When the father of our family died several years ago, we started our own
old-world cemetery. Soon one of his children followed him and now there
are two flower-covered mounds under the large carved-wood crucifix. The
lanterns are lit not only on the anniversaries and on All Souls' Day, but
every Saturday night. A hedge of "rosa multiflora" encircles this holy
spot. Inside the hedge there is a bench and we often sit there in the
peace and quiet of our little acre of God.
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