Image 1 of 1: The Trinity with Souls in Purgatory, Corrado Giaquinto
Saints and feasts
Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed
This is a commemoration rather than a single saint’s life, but it belongs naturally beside the saints because it shows the Church’s love for the souls still on the way to full glory.
The reading
ⓘ Butler source
Butler's Lives of the Saints, Volume IV (October-November-December), November 2, Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed, Christian Classics 1990, pp. 242-244.
All Souls is the Church's solemn remembrance of the faithful departed who died in God's grace and are still being purified before the full vision of Heaven. This life explains the ancient Christian practice of praying and offering the Holy Sacrifice for the dead, and then shows how that practice took liturgical shape in this universal commemoration. Its center is charity.
The dead are not cut off from the love of the Church, and the living are bound to remember them with prayer, penance, and Masses. The tone remains plain and hopeful because communion in Christ is real and love does not stop at death.
Historical note
Because November 2 is a feast-and-doctrine treatment rather than a normal life, this page stays focused on prayer for the faithful departed and the Church’s long practice of offering Mass and suffrages for them.
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Eternal Rest
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Nearby saint lives
Move through the calendar without leaving the saint library. These nearby feast-day lives help keep the reading trail connected.
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Connected prayer
De Profundis for the Faithful Departed
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Connected litany · Private devotion
Litany for the Faithful Departed
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Keep learning
What is prayer?
Read question 1099 and its complete answer in the Baltimore Catechism.
Read the Beatitudes in Matthew 5