ALL SOULS' DAY

HUNDREDS OF YEARS OF TRADITION

For the whole of my life up to the immediate post-Conciliar period vestments for Requiem Masses and so All Souls'Day, were Black. This was the tradition of the Church for hundreds of years. Black has always been in our society the colour of mourning, of night and of sleep - and thus of sin(night/evil and death/sleep).Since the Council, black has been an "option", but like all post-Conciliar traditional "options"it became non -PC and was rarely to be seen.White for rejoicing became the fashion for funerals - joy that the deceased is in Heaven. Yes, the Hollywood assumption that EVERYONE goes to Heaven was quickly taken up.(No one cared to note what Our Divine Lord had said about Death, Hell and punishment. No one wanted to scare the congregation!


Well, brick by brick, black is making a comeback starting from the burgeoning Extraordinary Form communities and spreading wider as more and more people become interested in the logic of tradition.


All Souls'Day brings especially to our mind all of our deceased family members. But do we often enough think to pray for the repose of the souls  of all of our ancestors? Time is irrelevant in Eternity and we should not feel inhibited about praying for those very long dead.


We should I think, bear in mind how very difficult the lives of our ancestors in ancient times probably were, in the rain drenched hillsides of Ireland perhaps, or in cold and wet ancient England, or the dark cold and wet forests of Germany etc., etc. Again, if we think of the period of the Protestant Deformation of Christ's Church, I reflect on the particular ancestors in Germany and in England who buckled under persecution and gave up their Holy Faith, so carefully handed on to them from their ancestors over as much as one thousand years. They are God's to judge. We can only pray that He will pour out His Mercy on them. 


So , Eternal Rest grant unto them O Lord, and may the perpetual light shine upon them, and may they rest in Peace. Amen