Retreat Day – Saturday 8th November 2025 led by Fr Darren Maslen SSS
Theme ‘Preparing the Eucharistic Way: Echoes of the Eucharist in the Old Testament for Today’.
Jubilee Year of Hope – Series of Talks
Monday 24th November 7pm: Is Beauty in the Eye of the beholder? Fr Patrick Van der Vorst (Precentor, Westminster Cathedral).
Monday 8th December 7.15pm: Reaching the Margins. Gail Williams (Centre Manager of St Joseph’s Pastoral Centre).
This Week
All Saints
2/11/2025
On Praying for the Departed
The evocative month of November is a time of remembrance. By the time you read this short article, we will have begun this month in which the Faithful Departed are especially remembered. The keeping of All Saints and All Souls Days reminds us that we are called to be citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem, a city ‘whose builder and maker is God.’ (Hebrews 11:10)
There are several ways in which we can remember and pray for the dead. Here are two particular ways for us to consider this month:
First of all, where possible, we can visit the places of burial. Some of us will have done this on the afternoon of the 1st of November, with the annual Blessing of Graves at Lavender Hill and Strayfield Road cemeteries. We might like to note that from 1-8th November, a plenary indulgence, applicable only to the souls in purgatory, is granted to any who devoutly visit a cemetery or simply pray mentally for the dead. These pious and worthy visits to the cemeteries also remind us to ensure that we have made provision for our own obsequies and have informed our nearest and dearest of our wishes, for ‘here we have no abiding city.’ (Hebrews 13:14).
Secondly, we can offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass for the repose of the souls of our dear departed. This provision is available here in the parish, where our ‘Dead List’, i.e. those whose names rest before the altar for the month of November, is called to mind and offered to the Lord in the simple grouping of the ‘Holy Souls’. Please remember that we will have additional Masses this month, including at 6.30 pm on All Souls Day (Monday 3rd November) in OLSG and also on Friday 28th November at 7 pm in OLSG– our Annual Bereavement Mass—when we remember all those whose funerals have taken place here over the past year.
Our prayers are also offered for the bereaved, that they may have the consolation of the promise of eternal life, and the blessed hope of seeing their departed loved ones again, ‘on another shore and in a greater light.’ St Paul teaches us to grieve with hope in our hearts. Eternal rest grant unto them!
With my prayers,
Father Daniel
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