All Souls Day 2012

I try to serve dessert on high feast days, so when a recipe for Soul Cakes came into my email in box on All Saints Day, I thought that was worth trying. They taste old-fashioned (not as sweet and rich as our adulterated modern tongues are accustomed to), so we added frosting to some instead of just powdered sugar.

In the afternoon, we joined a field trip to St. Joseph's Catholic Church and Cemetery (see here and here). It is a delightful little parish--now closed with historic status--founded by the original Irish settlers to this area. It opens twice per year for a special Mass and when a group wants a tour.

The parish is home to a delightful old cemetery, which made me think fondly of gravestone-tracing trips with my genealogist father. We were told that there are many unmarked graves here because they were marked with now lost wooden plaques, the marble headstones costing about three years' average salary back when. Also we were told one harrowing tale: There were four Irish families in the area who wished to return home to Ireland for a visit, but they couldn't possibly afford to take everyone. So the four brothers sailed home to Ireland, leaving their wives and many children behind. The ship sank, all the brothers perished at sea, and a joint memorial headstone marks their loss in this graveyard.

The Catholic Church sets aside the entire month of November to remind us to pray for the poor souls in purgatory. Within the All Souls' octave, one can receive a plenary indulgence, under the usual conditions and applied to the deceased, every day for eight days. As a group, we prayed the Litany for the Dead, and prayed an Our Father and Hail Mary for the intentions of the pope, and sang a beautiful hymn whose name I forget.

At home we did the same tradition that I think we developed last year: we covered our family altar in candles for the holiness effect so appealing to children (and adults!) and prayed our family rosary in dim lighting. We prayed various prayers for the deceased and read the list of deceased and loved ones attached to our family, about thirty names we have listed. This is a tradition I see as very appealing to little children and one that would be lovely to do throughout November. Bonus points because the kids are on best behavior to be allowed the privilege of snuffing out so many candles after the prayers are done!