All Saints Day and All Souls Day

November 1:

All Saints’ Day

Honouring our Ancestors in Faith

The witnesses who have preceded us into the kingdom. ... contemplate God, praise him and constantly care for those whom they have left on earth. ... Their intercession is their most exalted service to God’s plan. We can and should ask them to intercede for us and for the whole world.

(Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2683)

Let us pray

Almighty ever-living God, by whose gifts we venerate in one celebration the merits of all your Saints, bestow on us, we pray, through the prayers of so many intercessors, an abundance of the reconciliation with you for which we earnestly long.

(Collect of the Day from the Roman Missal)

Duccio di Buoninsegna, Maestà with Twenty Angels and Nineteen Saints, c. 1310

November 2:

Commemoration of the Faithful Departed

Remembering our Dead

 All who die in God’s grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven.

From the beginning the Church has honoured the memory of the dead and offered prayers in suffrage for them, above all the Eucharisitic sacrifice, so that, thus purified, they may attain the beatific vision of God.   

(Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1030, 1032)

Let us pray

Listen kindly to our prayers, O Lord, and, as our faith in your Son, raised from the dead, is deepened, so may our hope of resurrection for your departed servants also find new strength.

(Collect of the Day from the Roman Missal)

Puketapu Cemetery