Holy Souls: Visiting the Dead

As we continue through this month dedicated to prayer for the Holy Souls in Purgatory, we should take time to make concrete acts of prayer and charity for the sake of the dead so that they might come to experience God’s mercy and be welcomed into heaven. One particular act we should make is to visit our loved ones and friends whose bodies or cremated remains lie in rest in cemeteries.

This visit to pray in a cemetery can happen throughout the year, especially at important moments such as birthdays or anniversaries, but the Church proposes November as a special time to pray for the dead as we approach the end of the liturgical year with a special focus on the end of times. 

Attached to this blog post is a brief “Order for Visiting a Cemetery” that provides prayers for you to use when visiting a cemetery, especially the grave of a friend or loved one. This service is adapted from the official “Book of Blessings,” but this version has been adapted for ease of use by a family. (Click the button at the end of this post to download the document.)

The ceremony begins with a greeting which helps us enter into prayer and create a mindfulness of what we are doing, then we reading from sacred scripture which helps remind us of our faith in and hope for the the resurrection of the body, next we turn to prayer which begins with a litany where we ask for the intercession of the saints and concludes with a prayer, the lastly we end with a concluding rite the wraps up the order of service. 

I encourage you to read over the service, print it out, gather your family if possible, and head to the cemetery to pray for the departed. 

Lastly, I would add that the fact that burial in cemeteries provides us the opportunity to visit the faithful departed is actually one of the various reasons that the Church implores us and actually requires us to make sure that burial takes place rather than the storage of cremains at home or the scattering of ashes. If you have custody of the cremated remains of a loved one, November is a perfect time to make committal arrangements.

Click to Download the "Order for Visiting a Cemetery"
This article is part of a four week series exploring how November is a month dedicated to the Holy Souls in Purgatory and venerable Catholic traditions related to praying for the dead. 

October 31 - Holy Souls: All Souls Day
November 7 - Holy Souls: Visiting the Dead 
November 14 - Holy Souls: Novena for the Dead
November 21 - Holy Souls: Mass Offerings 

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