All Saints Day, All Souls Day, and Some Thanks in November
November is that glorious time of year, which I find completely underrated by the rest of the world, but which I love for the feasting and the reflecting. I could do without trick-or-treating (but seeing my kiddos dressed up in darling costumes is fun). Halloween is more a reminder for me to prep for the better day, All Saints Day. And then, to pray all month for the dead while thanking God for all the blessings in my life.
Prayer and gratitude. The best.
I just love to dig into the prayer, remembrance, and thanks of this month. Read on to find out how I’ll be adding things to our domestic church and prayer spaces, to enrich our daily living. At the end, I’m sharing some free downloads for Thanksgiving and practicing gratitude all month long.
All Saints Day –the day in the Catholic Church that we honor all the holy men and women who have finished the race and gained the reward of Heaven–is a great time to recall the saints who have prayed for us in the past. This day can help us have hope in the victory Christ has over sin, and that people like you and me can share in that victory. All Saints Day is for these amazing souls sharing the victory, who are cheering us on.
I’ve grown quite fond of several saints in the last few years. Most of the time, I’m not actually paying attention to the daily liturgical calendar, so I miss most of the saints’ days through the year. I can remember the feast of Saint John Paul II, because he’s our family’s main patron. Besides that? Forget it. I’m not keeping track of individual saint’s days when I’m working on not missing birthdays of my living family members.
All Saints Day a great time for me and my family to celebrate and honor all the saints we love. We missed the feast for the archangels? No problem, we can roll Saint Gabriel the Archangel into All Saints Day. Missed Saint Francis in October? November 1st is the day now. What about the saints who don’t appear on the liturgical calendar? All Saints Day covers those saints. Now all the lesser-known saints have a day to be remembered.
Who are your family’s favorite saints? We include Saint Pope John Paul II, Saint Joseph, Saint Therese of Lisieux, Saint Maximillian Kolbe, Saint Nicholas, and Saint Teresa of Calcutta (among others) in our litany. I’ve printed a new copy of our litany to display. (Would you like a litany for your home, too?) I’ll also set our saint statues on the mantle and bookshelves, as visual reminders of these great friends we have praying for us.
I’m also going to hang the banner from the celebration guide that Be A Heart Design has available. bonus: you can buy it and instantly download and print. I went ahead and laminated the pieces for my banner, to help it last year after year.
This saints-inspired play-list on Spotify has been fun to listen to, also.
All Souls’ Day –the day set aside for us to pray specifically for the dead who have not yet gained Heaven. In the Catholic Church, we believe that souls who loved God well but died with attachments to sin still need some purifying. This is the basic idea of Purgatory, and we believe that we can pray for these souls and help them, with our prayers, to gain the reward of Heaven.
“Turning to supplication, they prayed that the sinful deed might be fully blotted out…Thus he made atonement for the dead that they might be absolved from their sin.” –2 Maccabees 12:42, 26 NABRE
This year, I’m starting a new All Souls Day tradition with my family. We’re displaying photos of our deceased relatives to remember them in prayer. My children don’t know any of these great- and great-great-grandparents in their lineage. Some I didn’t even know in my lifetime, but they are important members of my biological family as well as the Communion of Saints! I hope that having their photos out will inspire us to pray for them more, as well as to remember what a gift their lives were for us. Without them, we quite literally wouldn’t be here. And their own belief in God, their faith passed down is now bearing fruit in this generation and God-willing the next (my children).
Praying for the dead is a spiritual work of mercy. On All Souls Day and all through November, we’re reminded to pray for the dead. Seeing the photos of our deceased relatives will inspire us (I hope!) to pray for them and do this work of mercy. It doesn’t have to be hard; and I hope this tradition will last.
Friends of mine pray this prayer after grace before meals:
Eternal rest grant unto them,
O Lord, and let perpetual light
shine upon them. May the souls
of all the faithful departed, through
the mercy of God, rest in peace.
I don’t think we’ll remember to add that, but it is a beautiful and simple way to pray for the dead every single day!
How will you honor the saints and the faithful departed this month?
Now for the part about gratitude all month, and Thanksgiving! After reflecting on the gifts of faith and the prayers the saints offer for us, I keep the practice going. We try to write down one thing each day that we’re grateful for, and hang paper tags on a string. By the end of the month, we have a banner full of thanks.
Click here to download printable tags.
Sometimes we forget. Sometimes I catch my oldest child sneakily writing something down that she’s grateful for, but doesn’t want to share. Sometimes I look back on the tags (I save them) and giggle about what the boys were grateful for. It’s a simple way to enter the “season of thanks”. I hope the seeds of thankfulness we’re sowing in our children’s lives now grow into lasting habits as they become adults.
For more posts on Thanksgiving and other freebies, see these posts:
Cranberry Thanksgiving
Always Something
Thankful November
