All Souls Day importance

All Souls Day importance, is a day of remembrance when we pray for all departed souls who are believed to be in purgatory, and we remember our own dead by visiting their graves and praying for them.

All Souls Day importance

The month of November is traditionally linked to the commemoration of the dead, the day is called as All Souls Day. Even those who do not usually attend them during the rest of the year, go to the cemetery, pray more intensely for the loved ones who have already passed on to the other life, program Masses in their suffrage.

It happens especially on November 2nd, not surprisingly in the popular word "day of the dead". In reality the Church remembers in each Eucharist those who have already preceded us in the encounter with the Lord but in this period their memory is stronger and heartfelt. 

What is the significance of All Soul's Day: Why do we pray for the dead?

It seems a paradox but it is not at all. We pray for the dead to celebrate life, because we believe they are alive in the Lord, to accompany them on the path of approaching Him. With prayer, in fact, we help souls struggling with an itinerary of purification.

We speak of the Purgatory that the Compendium of the Catechism at number 210 defines as "the state of those who die in the friendship of God, but, though confident of their eternal salvation, they still need purification, to enter into heavenly bliss". And the following number adds: "By virtue of the communion of saints, the faithful still pilgrims on earth can help the souls in purgatory by offering suffrage prayers for them, in particular the Eucharistic Sacrifice, but also alms, indulgences and works of penance".

However, beyond these theological motivations underlying the commemorations of the dead there are also spiritual reasons on the edge of the psychological. In fact, praying for the dead means believing that there is a life beyond this, that we will meet the Lord, that there is a direct link between earth and heaven. But it is also a way to feel closer to the people we have loved, to thank them for being there, to learn from the memory of their lives, what the Lord wants to teach us.

Works of mercy

The Catholic Church explicitly asks to commemorate the dead. Indeed, the last work of spiritual mercy invites us to "pray for the living and the dead" by linking directly to the corporal "to bury the dead". "

The Church - Pope Francis said during the general audience of November 30, 2016 - prayed for the dead in a special way during Holy Mass. The priest says: "Remember, Lord, your faithful, who have preceded us with the sign of faith and sleep the sleep of peace. Give them, Lord, and to all those who rest in Christ, bliss, light and peace "(Roman Canon). A simple, effective memory, full of meaning, because it entrusts our loved ones to the mercy of God. 

We pray with Christian hope that they are with Him in heaven, waiting to find ourselves together in that mystery of love that we do not understand, but which we know to be true because it is a promise that Jesus made. We will all be resurrected and we will all remain forever with Jesus, with Him.

When is All Souls Day celebrated?

Always, despite different ways and nuances, all peoples remember and pray for the dead. In the Church their commemoration has been present since the ninth century but already some two hundred years before in the monasteries one day a year was specifically dedicated to this celebration.

As for the choice of November 2nd, the story takes us back to the year 928. It was then that the Benedictine abbot Odilone invited all the monks of the Cluniac Order to opt for that date. At the base the story that made him a brother returned from the Holy Land. A Odilone, always very attentive to the souls of Purgatory to whom he dedicated prayers and sacrifices, the monk said that, following a shipwreck on the Sicilian coasts he met a hermit, who often told him to hear the suffering voices of the souls of Purgatory and together the cries of the demons who screamed right at him, the abbot Odilone.
The tradition of commemoration of the dead was then officially accepted by the entire Church of Rome in 1311.

All Souls Day Prayer

There are of course many religious and mystics who have looked to the dead. Served Father David Maria Turoldo, in his prayer-poem asks for the gift of better understanding, through them, the mystery of life.

"We do not ask you, Lord

to raise our dead,

we ask you to understand their death

and to believe that you are the Risen One:

this is enough for us to know

that, even if dead, we live

and that we will not succumb

to death forever. Amen".
Yes, we have learnt the All Souls Day importance.