November 2: All Souls’ Day
The Church has encouraged prayer for the dead
from the earliest times as an act of Christian charity. "If we had no care
for the dead," Augustine noted, "we would not be in the habit of
praying for them." Yet pre-Christian rites for the deceased retained such
a strong hold on the superstitious imagination that a liturgical commemoration
was not observed until the early Middle Ages, when monastic communities began
to mark an annual day of prayer for the departed members.
In the middle of the 11th century, St. Odilo, abbot of Cluny
(France), decreed that all Cluniac monasteries offer special prayers and sing
the Office for the Dead on November 2, the day after the feast of All Saints.
The custom spread from Cluny and was finally adopted throughout the Roman
Church.
The theological underpinning of the feast is the acknowledgment of
human frailty. Since few people achieve perfection in this life but, rather, go
to the grave still scarred with traces of sinfulness, some period of
purification seems necessary before a soul comes face-to-face with God. The
Council of Trent affirmed this purgatory state and insisted that the prayers of
the living can speed the process of purification.
Superstition easily clung to the observance. Medieval popular
belief held that the souls in purgatory could appear on this day in the form of
witches, toads or will-o’-the-wisps. Graveside food offerings supposedly eased
the rest of the dead.
Observances of a more religious nature have survived. These
include public processions or private visits to cemeteries and decorating
graves with flowers and lights. This feast is observed with great fervor in
Mexico.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.