All Soul's Day

St. Isodore, first announced a day of prayer for the dead on the Monday after Pentecost. Odilo, Abbot of Clunyin Burgandy (+1049), picked the date of November 2nd, the day after All Saints Day, for general monastic purposes. Detications that followed were, All Soul's College at Oxford and All Soul's Church at Langham, England.

A modern "All Soul's Church" which is also called "The Parish of Umhalhi" http://memberstruepath.com/umhalhiangili... It was built to commemorate the men who lived in that district who died in World War I. After All Soul's Day came "chantry chapels." These were found in many medieval cathedrals, they were used for the saying (chanting) of masses for the dead. All of which lead to special All Soul's Day masses, prayers for the dead, indulgences and meditations.

Prudence Jones wrote an article called "All Soul's Day Used To Be On May 13th." http://www.globalideasbank.org Below is a web site that has even more information about All Soul's Day and the Unitarian church. http://www.hullp.demon.co.uk/SacredHeart... This web site also has references about a practice that was and still is used by the Catholics, called indulgences. It has changed through the years. Indulgences; there are 70 indulgences included on the following web site, it is a digest of works and prayers. Some indulgences are done to help souls that have died are in purgatory to help them get out and go on to heaven. http://www.catholic.org/prayer/indulgw.h...

All Soul's Day is celebrated worldwide. In Mexico, they make altars for the dead in their homes and place candy skulls, chocolates, soul cakes and the favorite food of the deceased person. They then go to the graveside of the deceased and clean their tombstone and leave special flowers called "the flowers of the dead." The flowers of the dead in Mexico are marigolds, in Europe they are chrysanthemums. Then they have a feast as if the deceased person is present with them. St. Lucia (West Indies), they call All Soul's Day, Fe te La Mo. Vietnam, celebrates All Souls' Day on the 15th day of the 7th month. Buddhism used to refer to this day as "the day of forgiveness." In Italy, there are prayers for the dead written on the wall of the catacombs.

Here is a story written by Madison J. Gray in, The Detroit News about the Latino community in Detroit, Michigan (USA). It is about how they celebrated All Soul's Day in 1995.

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