Thirty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time
A Visit to Our Cemetery for the Hallowtide Triduum
Who doesn’t love the awe-inspiring beauty of autumn, including all of the brilliant colors that light up the landscape? Our Heavenly Father’s fall artistry is just one of the many reasons to visit our Cemetery in the coming weeks. It’s certainly the perfect season to enjoy the quiet beauty and natural magnificence of our grounds, and with the Hallowtide Triduum approaching, it’s also a sacred time prayerfully to remember our loved ones who have passed from this life.
The Hallowtide Triduum was instituted after popular practices and includes the following:
1. All Saints Eve or All Hallows Eve (October 31) – Commonly known as Halloween, is a time to contemplate our own death and our eventual judgment. How can / should we prepare ourselves?
2. All Saints Day (November 1) – This is a Catholic feast day and holy day of obligation, in which we celebrate and honor those who have died and gone on to heaven – the church triumphant!
3. All Souls Day (November 2) – On this day, Catholics remember and pray for the faithful departed, including those in purgatory, the church expectant. We pray with hope and joyful expectation that they will one day be in heaven.
All Saints & All Souls:
In church tradition, we remember “those who have gone before us, marked with the sign of faith,” especially in this month of November. On All Saints Day we pray with the saints whose exemplary lives are models worthy of our consideration and imitation. On All Souls Day we pray for those who need forgiveness for their sins, and yearn to see God face to face – people just like us.
Tuesday, November 1st, is All Saints Day, a Holy Day of Obligation. Masses for All Saints Day are at 6:30 and 8:00 a.m., 12:00 noon, and 7:00 p.m. That means that Monday, October 31st, is Halloween, the eve of all the hallowed (holy). Our culture seems to suggest that Halloween is about death, and the horrors surrounding dying. In the Catholic Church, our Solemnity of All Saints is a celebration of life…Life in Christ Jesus, who conquered Satan, sin and death, and has opened for us the way to Eternal Life. We do not need to buddy-up to the prince of darkness, nor make nice with the minions of the nether world, in order to negotiate the perils of this life. That certainly is NOT what Jesus did! By our Baptism, “in the Name of the Father, and of The Son, and of the Holy Spirit,” we have been made brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ, adopted children of the Heavenly Father, and gifted with the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit. There is only one HOLY SPIRIT. All the rest (fallen angels, demons, lost souls) are distractions and impediments to the healing, hope, glory, redemption, and sanctification God has in store for us through Jesus Christ and the Sacramental Life of the Catholic Church. Indeed, it is a delight to celebrate in faith the gift and grace of redemption we receive from Jesus, along with all the Angels and Saints in our “Catholic Hall of Fame.”
Wednesday, November 2nd is the Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed, All Souls Day. On Wednesday, we will celebrate our typical 6:30 and 8:00 a.m. Masses in the morning; and, our Annual Mass of Remembrance at 7:00 p.m. This Mass will begin with a litany of names: the people who were buried from St. Peter Church this past year. A special invitation was sent to their families, inviting them to join us for this evening of prayerful remembrance. All are welcome to join us, as we commend to God’s gracious care our family members, friends and faithful departed parishioners. Eternal rest grant unto them O Lord. And let perpetual light shine upon them. May they rest in peace. Amen. May their soul, and all the souls of the faithful departed rest in peace. Amen.
St. Peter Parish Purgatorial Society – Maintaining our Church
Each year at this time, we receive an envelope in our monthly packets for All Souls Day. Like last year, we are offering you the opportunity to enroll family members and friends in our Purgatorial Society. Those who are enrolled in the St. Peter Parish Purgatorial Society are remembered in a weekly Mass – that’s once a week, every week, year round. The priest praying The Purgatorial Mass receives the typical $10.00 stipend. The additional funds generated from The Purgatorial Society envelope are used for special liturgical needs of our parish, i.e. refurbish sacred vessels, purchase of altar appointments, and acquisition of liturgical consumables (candles, hosts, wine). In this way we will be remembering our faithful departed in prayer, along with maintaining the lovely way in which we pray.
Sincerely yours in Jesus,
Fr. John Seper