RITUAL FOR ALL SOULS DAY
Since I lost my dad and brother, the oft-overlooked feast of All Souls Day has deeply appealed to me. Falling just after Halloween, it’s a day to remember our dead. I love to gather people for All Souls to acknowledge that all of us are always carrying grief and love for the ones we’ve lost. If you’re looking for a way to mark the day, here’s a ritual I’ve put together, which you can use alone or with friends. It uses language from the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer.
Leader: The Lord be with you.
All: And also with you.
WELCOME & INTRODUCTION
On All Souls Day we remember all those who have died, and we pray for them. It is a day to bring our private memories, our grief, our doubt, and our hope into the warm embrace of our community. It is also a day to remember our own mortality. Our culture thinks and speaks of death so infrequently. All Souls Day is a day to call death to mind, to prepare our spirits for it, and to do so in good company.
We all carry within us people who have formed us but who are no longer with us. We carry them in our mannerisms, our humor, our convictions, our aspirations. We carry their memories with us always, but we have so few opportunities to talk about them. All Souls Day acknowledges that we are all working through loss, and that whether we realized it or not, we carry the lost with us into every room we enter. On All Souls Day, we say, “Here is a death I am grieving. Here is a life I am celebrating.”
All Saints and All Souls, or Allhallowtide, is a time in the church calendar when grief and celebration are inseparably tied. This can be confusing, so it’s good to have practices that help us to hold both of these emotions at once. In this ritual, through poems, prayers, and candlelight, we can grieve and celebrate together.
POEM: “My Dead Friends” by Marie Howe
I have begun,
when I’m weary and can’t decide an answer to a bewildering question
to ask my dead friends for their opinion
and the answer is often immediate and clear.
Should I take the job? Move to the city? Should I try to conceive a child
in my middle age?
They stand in unison shaking their heads and smiling—whatever leads
to joy, they always answer,
to more life and less worry. I look into the vase where Billy’s ashes were —
it’s green in there, a green vase,
and I ask Billy if I should return the difficult phone call, and he says, yes.
Billy’s already gone through the frightening door,
whatever he says I’ll do.
ALL SOULS PRAYER
Father of all, we pray to you for those we love, but see no
longer: Grant them your peace; let light perpetual shine upon
them; and, in your loving wisdom and almighty power, work
in them the good purpose of your perfect will; through Jesus
Christ our Lord. Amen.
TOASTS & CANDLES
Light a candle for someone you love who has died. As you light it, offer a toast to that person, remembering them and inviting others to celebrate them with you.
LITANY FOR THE DEAD
For those who have died whom we hold in our hearts, let us pray
to our Lord Jesus Christ who said, "I am Resurrection and I am Life."
Lord, you consoled Martha and Mary in their distress; draw
near to us who mourn, and dry the tears of those who weep.
Hear us, Lord.
You wept at the grave of Lazarus, your friend; comfort us in
our sorrow.
Hear us, Lord.
You raised the dead to life; give to our beloved departed eternal life.
Hear us, Lord.
You promised paradise to the thief who repented; bring our
beloved departed to the joys of heaven.
Hear us, Lord.
Comfort us in our sorrows; let our faith be our consolation,
and eternal life our hope. Amen.
READING: 1 Corinthians 15: 50-58
I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:
“Death is swallowed up in victory.”
“O death, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting?”
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.
ALL SOULS PRAYER
Lord Jesus Christ, by your death you took away the sting of
death: Grant to us your servants so to follow in faith where
you have led the way, that we may at length fall asleep
peacefully in you and wake up in your likeness, in the glorious
company of the saints in light; for your tender mercies' sake.
Amen.