108Why Catholics Go to Cemeteries on All Souls’ Day
posted by sherliez on October 31st, 2010
Requiem aeternam dona eis Domine; et lux perpetua luceat eis. Requiescant in pace. Amen.
Six hours from now, it’s going to be November 1. A day where people will go to the cemeteries. Here in Philippines, Filipinos, mostly Catholics, go there to visit the tomb of their departed relatives to offer prayer , clean the graves and even a family reunion for some. There will even be mass exodus of people going to their provinces to remember their family who are on the other life. Have you ever wondered how this all started?
I copied the essay below from Society of St. Pius X and hope to give you some insights on how this tradition came about.
RELIGIOUS CUSTOMS
The custom of decorating graves and praying in cemeteries is general in all Catholic countries. On the afternoon of All Saints’ Day or in the morning of All Souls’ the faithful visit each individual grave of relatives and friends. Sometimes the congregation, led by the priest, walks in procession to the cemetery. There they pray for all the holy souls in front of the cemetery chapel, then the priest recites the liturgical prayers for the dead and blesses the graves with holy water. Afterward the families separate to offer private prayers at the graves of their loved ones.
During the week preceding All Saints’ crowds of people may be seen in the cemeteries, usually in the evening after work, decorating the graves of their dear ones with flowers, tending the lawn, and spreading fresh white gravel around the tombs. Candles, protected by little glass lanterns, are placed around the graves or at the foot of the tombstones, to be lighted on All Saints’ Eve and left burning through the night. It is an impressive, unforgettable sight to look upon the hundreds and often thousands of lights quietly burning in the darkness and dreary solitude of a cemetery. People call them “lights of the holy souls” (Seelenlichter).
Visiting a candlelit cemetery at night
To visit the graves of dear ones on All Souls’ is considered a duty of such import that people will travel great distances to their home towns on All Saints’ Day in order to perform this obligation of love and piety.
It is an ancient custom in Catholic sections of central Europe to ring the church bells at the approach of dusk on All Saints’ Day, to remind the people to pray for the souls in purgatory. When the pealing of these bells is heard, families gather in one room of their home, extinguish all other lights save the blessed candle (kept from Candlemas Day [Feast of the Purification, Feb. 2]), which is put on the table.
In the rural sections of France four men alternate in tolling the church bell for an hour on All Saints’ Day after dark. Four other men go from farm to farm during the night, ringing hand bells and chanting at each place: “Christians awake, pray to God for the souls of the dead, and say the Pater and Ave for them.” From the house comes the reply “Amen” as the people rise for prayer.
In most countries of South America All Souls’ Day is a public holiday. In Brazil people flock by the thousands to the cemeteries all morning, light candles and kneel at the graves in prayer. The deep silence of so many persons in the crowded cemetery deeply impresses the stranger. In Puerto Rico, people will walk for miles to the graves of their loved ones. The women often carry vases of flowers and water, for they know they can get no water at the cemetery to keep the flowers fresh. They wear their best clothes as they trudge along in the hot sun. Whole truckloads of people will arrive at the cemetery if the distance is too far to walk. The priest visits each grave and says the prayers for the dead as the mourners walk along with him. Sometimes the ceremony lasts for hours and it is near midnight when the tired pastor visits the last graves.
In Poland the faithful bring to their parish priest on All Souls’ Day paper sheets with black borders called Wypominki (Naming) on which are written the names of their beloved dead. During the evening devotions in November, and on Sundays, the names are read from the pulpit and prayers are offered for the repose of the Souls.
The tradition of devoting the eight days after All Souls’ to special prayer, penance, and acts of charity has developed over time among the faithful. People call this particular time of the year “Soul Nights” (Seelennachte). Every evening the rosary is said for the holy souls within the family while the blessed candle burns. Many go to Mass every morning. A generous portion of the meal is given to the poor each day; and the faithful abstain from dances and other public amusements out of respect for the holy souls.
Since All Saints’ and All Souls’ happened to be placed within the period of ancient pre-Christian festivals, some of the pre-Christian traditions became part of our Christian feasts and associated with Christian ideas.
The ancient Celts were much preoccupied with the thought of death and the mysterious life beyond so that nowadays, in countries populated by a Celtic stock, as Ireland, Brittany, Wales, Gaelic Scotland, or in certain English counties permeated in the past by Celtic influences, we find extant survivals of old traditions and customs associated with the season of the Holy Souls. Some of these observances will appeal to Catholics, others are distinctly superstitious; on the whole, however, whatever may have been the actual origin of many of these practices, they have been impregnated and transmuted, with Christian thought and feeling.
Brittany is the last great stronghold of old ways and manners. In that country, the people have —if one may thus express it —an intimate association with the departed souls, the “anaon,” or “souls of the ancestors” as they are generally called.
The suffering souls are thought of as sometimes fulfilling their purgatory close at hand, in farmsteads, fields, or unfrequented lanes. If in conversation, the name of an ancestor, even a neighbor’s ancestor, is mentioned, some one will have the pious wish ready —”Peace to their souls.”
Naturally, the continual remembrance or the departed has influenced Breton character and life considerably, while as might he expected from devout Catholic peasantry, this devotion to the “anaon’s” welfare reaches its climax on the “Night of the dead,” our Hallowe’en. Then for forty-eight hours —so the Breton believes —the poor souls are liberated from Purgatory and are free to revisit their old homes, so that, of course, everything possible must be done to make them welcome.
It is a day of prayer, without a trace of the merriment of a Scotch or Irish Hallowe’en. All through the day, members of each household have prayed by the family graves; then in the late afternoon, everybody goes to “black Vespers” in the parish church; men and women kneeling round the catafalque (i.e., the false full-sized casket draped in black —Ed.) which throughout the year stands in a conspicuous position in the church.
In country parishes, as soon as Vespers is said, the congregation proceeds to the charnel-house —an important building in many churchyards —where bones from an over-full graveyard are kept. This night the doors are opened, some peasants kneel inside among the bones, others on the grass outside. In the dark, lit up only by the candles burning on each grave, they sing the Complaint of the Charnel-house, a Breton hymn, which first calls on Christians to gather together, then follows an appeal, as though issued by the bones themselves, beseeching for prayers and again for more prayers.
The ceremonies of the “veille” are by no means ended when the worshipers leave the churchyard. In the some districts, after supper is cleared away, each housewife spreads a clean cloth on the table, puts on it hot pancakes, curds, and cider. The fire is well banked up, chairs are put round it, and the family, after another De Profundis (Psalm 129), goes to bed.
Soon after nine o’clock, a messenger goes through the streets, ringing a bell to remind everyone to go indoors, as it is unwise to meet the souls streaming home at midnight. Later still, a band of singers —the “chanters of the dead”—go through the village, rap at each door to wake the sleepers; where upon they chant another Breton hymn asking for prayers, the Complaint of the Souls.
Then all is quiet, unless someone waking in the night, hears murmurs in the kitchen, or catches sounds of work. Then he knows the ancestors are back, warming themselves at the fire, for the poor souls are always cold; or trying their tools at their old labor.
Next day is “Toussoini” when the whole household goes to early Mass; the “Anaon,” go too, for it is said on this day families are reunited —living and dead assist at Mass together.
Some districts had their special customs. In the Isle of Sein, four young men stayed in church during the night, tolling the bells hourly. (The number “four” is the classic number of man. It symbolizes the four temperaments of man; choleric, sanguine, melancholic, and phlegmatic. It also stands for the four seasons and the four cardinal virtues; prudence, justice, temperance and fortitude.—Ed.) Four other men went to every house on the island where someone had died during the previous year, and called on the inmates to say the De Profundis with them.
Another most touching custom prevails. It is not usual for women to go out in the fishing boats, but when a sailor or fisherman has been drowned, and his body has never been recovered, on All Souls’ Day the women from the bereaved family sail far out with the men, and all say the De Profundis for their dead relative.
Irish folk, as is well known, keep Hallowe’en with great zest. In the West, after the young people’s games with nuts and apples are finished, the housemother builds up the fire with sods, sets the chairs round in a semicircle, spreads the table with a clean cloth, and puts ready for the Holy Souls a large uncut loaf and a jug of water. In parts of Kerry, a pot of tea is put out on Christmas Eve for the poor souls, and it is noteworthy that the pious legends of Breton say that the ancestors are liberated from Purgatory on Christmas Eve and St. John’’s Eve, as well as Hallowe’en.
That infamous killer of Catholics, Queen Elizabeth of England, forbade all observances connected with All Souls’ Day. In spite of her ordinance, “souling” customs—mentioned historically both before and after the Reformation—went on in English and Welsh counties for centuries, and indeed, have not quite disappeared yet from a few Shropshire villages.
The practice itself was very homey. On All Souls’ Day, women and girls visiting well-to-do neighbors’ houses, begged for and received “soul cakes” (shortbreads). The older forms of request are interesting as they show pre-Reformation Catholic phraseology, for in return for the cakes, prayers were apparently offered for the donor’s soul: “A soul-cake; a soul-cake, have mercy on all Christian souls, for a soul-cake.” (Note how the “treating” part of today’s Hallowe’en was originally sanctified as an opportunity to pray for one’s neighbor!—Ed.)
As time went on, prayers for the poor souls were forgotten, and the making of special soul-cakes ceased also. Apples, buns, and money were dispensed to children. The only “soulers” left came round singing country rhymes instead of the old time request for “a soul-cake, good mistress, I pray thee, a soul-cake.” The following verse is typical of the rhymes:
Soul, soul, an apple or two,
If you haven’t an apple, a pear will do,
One for Peter, two for Paul.
Three for the Man Who made us all.
It is rather surprising to find that in East Yorkshire, where the people are of mixed Saxon, Danish, and Norse descent, a similar custom prevailed. There it was the bakers who gave their customers, on November 2nd, “saumas (soul-mass) loaves” small square buns with currants (i.e., small seedless raisins—Ed.) spread in the shape of a cross on top. One bun was supposed to be kept in the house during the following year for “good fortune.”
Though not connected with Hallowe’en or All Souls’ Day, the remarkable funeral custom of “sin eating” is worth mentioning. In the 18th century and later, when someone died in Wales and Hereford, the “sin eater” of the parish, generally a very poor and humble man, was brought to the house. Standing on one side of the corpse, a crust of bread, a mug of ale (in some districts, milk) and a sixpenny were handed him over the dead body. The “sin eater” ate and drank, thereby signifying that he had taken on himself, i.e., “eaten the sins” of the deceased and thus prevented the soul from haunting the old home. (While this practice may seem strange to us, it evokes the Catholic dogma of Our Lord’s propitiation for all our sins. “Him, Who knew no sin, He hath made sin for us that we might be made the justice of God in Him [Christ]”—II Corinthians 5:21. The same dogma is recalled at Holy Mass when the priest spreads his hands over the bread and wine, soon to become Our Lord; an image of the rite in the Old Testament when the priest spread his hands over a goat, bringing down upon the animal the sins of the people, then letting it escape alone into the wilderness. This “sin-laden” goat was call the “scape-goat”—Ed.) Nominally in 18th century custom, “sin eating” or traces of it seemed to have lingered in Wales until the middle of the 19th century, while in Herefordshire, the ceremonial drinking of port wine by pall bearers and visitors in the room in which lay the corpse, looks much as though it were a reminiscence of the same custom. (Until disallowed by community hygienic laws, wakes were held in the homes of the deceased, especially among the Irish.—Ed.)
When a funeral takes place in some districts of London, the mourners make efforts to have among the floral displays, at least one “gate,” which, as its name suggests, consists of flower or greenery-covered “bars,” with a white bird also represented in flowers. Now it seems as if this cherished floral “gate” might well be a folk memory, taking tangible form, of a once widespread belief that when a man died, his soul escaped through his lips in the form of some little creature, in Brittany a gnat or a mouse, in England and Ireland, a white butterfly or bird. There is another vestige of the superstition in Derby and Yorkshire, where white night-flying moths are called “souls” by country people.
Past beliefs never quite disappear; some part should be made to live on, though perhaps changed here and there, so that among our children and in our Catholic parishes at least, among the everyday materialistic business and hubbub, we Catholics give physical expression to the truth that departed souls wind their way through the gates of death to the life beyond—Heaven, Hell, Purgatory.
In pre-Christian times, food was put out for the dead. Catholics have sanctified this pagan custom and now bake special breads in honor of the holy souls and bestow them on children and the poor. “All Souls’ Bread” (Seelenbrot) is made and distributed in Germany, Belgium, France, Austria, Spain, Italy, Hungary, and in the Slavic countries.
In Poland the farmers hold a solemn meal on the evening of All Souls’ Day, with empty seats and plates ready for the “souls” of departed relatives. Onto the plates members of the family put parts of the dinner. These portions are not touched by anyone, but afterward are given to beggars or poor neighbors. In the Alpine provinces of Austria destitute children and beggars go from house to house, reciting a prayer or singing a hymn for the holy souls, receiving small loaves of the “soul bread” in reward. There, too, people put aside a part of everything that is cooked on All Souls’ Day and give meals to the poor.
In Hungary the “Day of the Dead” (Halottak Napja) is kept with the traditional customs common to all people in central Europe. In addition, they invite orphan children into the family for All Saints’ and All Souls’ days, serving them generous meals and giving them gifts.
In the rural sections of Poland the charming story is told that at midnight on All Souls’ Day a great light may be seen in the parish church; the holy souls of all departed parishioners who are still in purgatory gather there to pray for their release before the very altar where they used to receive the Blessed Sacrament when still alive. Afterward the souls are said to visit the scenes of their earthly life and labors, especially their homes. To welcome them by an external sign the people leave doors and windows open on All Souls’ Day.
In Austria the holy souls are said to wander through the forests on All Souls’ Day, sighing and praying for their release, but unable to reach the living by external means that would indicate their presence. For this reason, the children are told to pray aloud while going through the open spaces to church and cemetery, so the poor souls will have the great consolation of seeing that their invisible presence is known and their pitiful cries for help are understood and answered.
