A Quick Prep to Make for November

Happy All Hallows' Eve!

I am praying it will be a safe and happy one for you and that, if you are going out trick-or-treating with littles, you go over road safety before heading out.

(I always remember how important this is on this day. For, if it was not for my eldest's guardian angel, he might not still be with us due to forgetting road safety one night on Halloween!)

I also want to remind you that tomorrow is the day when you can visit a cemetary to pray for souls, gaining indulgences for them. Most years, this indulgence is only available November 1-8, but this year (2021), the Vatican has extended the traditional All Souls' Day indulgence to the entire month of November.

With that in mind, today I made a quick prep for November: While printing copies of the St. Gertrude Prayer and Eternal Rest Prayer to give to others at our annaul All Saints Day party, I printed extras of the St. Gertrude Prayer to keep in my car so that my children and I will have them handy for use as we drive by different cemetaries this coming month.

If you do not already have the prayer memorized and do not have a ready copy of it in your vehicle, I suggest you print one, too. (You can find the one we use here.)

It's an easy prep to help you pray for All Souls throughout November.

May God bless you and yours this All Saints and All Souls Day and may you remember often to pray for al souls!

Start a Tradition of Painting and Praying for All Souls

If you are looking for an activity to do with your family as you live the liturgical year this season, how about breaking out paints and using your artwork to remind you daily in November to pray for the dearly departed?

Several years ago, as a part of our AMP (art-music-poetry) club activities, my children and some friends made All Souls Day calendars.

Since then, we painting as a preparation for the Month of Souls in Purgatory has become traditional for us.

Some years, we make a calendar and list the names of dearly departed to pray for on each day.

Other years, we simply paint seasonal images to put on our liturgical shelf or kitchen table as a reminder to pray.

All years, we find the painting time gives us a time to be creative while talking, once more, about offering prayers an sacrifices for the souls in purgatory, what All Souls day is all about, and opportunities to help the dearly departed through gaining an indulgence for them.

It is a tradition we enjoy that, perhaps, your family might, too.

If you would like us to add intentions for any of your dearly departed into our prayers this November, just comment on this post with a name or let us know with a comment on our Facebook page.

We'd appreciate prayers, especially, for the souls of Theresa, Mary, Jack, Francis, Regina, Dickie, Gerry, Adrian, Briar, and many other beloved dead. Thank you.

If you'd like other ideas for All Souls Day, browse some of our past posts.

We are grateful for you joining us in prayers for the dearly departed this November.

Introducing Our Mysteries of the Rosary Peg Dolls and our November Liturgical Shelf

October whizzed by before I made time for my children and myself to swap out our September liturgical shelf with an October one.

Thus, my daughter and I found ourselves combining inspiration from October's devotion to the Holy Rosary and November's devotion to the Holy Souls when making our November display.

For the display, we chose a white cloth to remind us of the purification souls must go through before enjoying the bliss of being in union with God in the glory of heaven.

Marian Devotions


On one side of the display, we kept the paschal candle our friends made for us this year and placed an Our Lady of the Rosary peg doll which we received in a Marian swap and had meant to put up in October. 

On the other side, we kept a blessed white candle another friend gave us for Candlemas place and put a vignette of our Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal and St. Catherine Laboure in front of it, since Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal will be celebrated on the 27th of this month.

Betwixt these two Marian ends, we set up our main display to remind us to pray Rosaries and special prayers for the dearly departed throughout November. 

Introducing Our Mysteries of the Rosary Peg Dolls


Our Rosary reminders includes, of course, rosary beads. They also include peg dolls that we received in a swap a while back which represent each mystery of the Holy Rosary.

The Joyful Mysteries dolls include:

• a Mary doll with an angel modge podged to it

• a St. Anne doll with John leaping in her womb

• a small-sized Jesus doll with a line sketch of the Nativity painted on it

• a doll with Mary painted on one side, Jesus in the middle, and Joseph with doves on the other side

• a Mama Mary and Child Jesus doll set

The Glorious Mysteries dolls include:

• a John the Baptist doll

• a Jesus with wine doll

• a apostle with the Word doll

• a golden (transfiguration) Jesus doll

• a Jesus doll with bread and wine, plus a modge podged image of the Last Supper

The Sorrowful Mysteries dolls include:

• a beautiful Agony in the Garden set with a kneeling Jesus sweating blood, a small rock and an angel

• a bound and scourged Jesus (the red scourging is on his back)

• a Jesus crowned with thorns (which has gone missing so is not pictured)

• a Jesus carrying a cross

• a Jesus on a cross

The Luminous Mysteries ones include:

• a risen Jesus

• an ascending Jesus

• an apostle receiving the Holy Spirit

• a Mary with clouds and stars (for the Assumption)

• a crowned Mary

Holy Souls Calendar Pages

Behind these dolls, we placed the All Souls calendar pages that we made in our AMP club last month. 

On three of these calendars, we have pre-written names of our own dearly departed as well as names of the beloved deceased of friends, relatives, and blog followers who have asked us to pray so that we can remember to specifically pray for these souls this month. 

The fourth calendar page remains mostly blank, because one child of mine asked to write names after praying and not as a reminder to pray.

Still to Come

Later this week, since some of us have forgotten the words to the St. Gertrude Prayer for Holy Souls, we plans to redo our copywork of this prayer and to slip it between the wall and our Our Lady of the Rosary pegdoll for easy reading access. 


(In the past, we have also done copywork of The Eternal Rest prayer, but do not need to redo this since we have all long since memorized this prayer and pray it faithfully upon passing cemeteries when we are driving around as well as when we hear of people passing.)

It's Working

We have just put our November liturgical shelf display together display, and it is already actively focusing us on both last month's devotion to the Holy Rosary and this month's devotion to praying for Holy Souls.  

In fact, just before leaving for a walking Rosary to a local cemetery this afternoon, we checked our calendars for the names of the deceased we would pray for along the way.

Then, as is our custom from the 1st through 8th of November when we got to the cemetery, we prayed for special indulgences for Holy Souls in Purgatory before selecting random souls to pray for. his tradition has become a meaningful and beautiful one for us, and I encourage you to consider making it customary for your family, too!

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.  

Create Art and Pray for All Souls

Do you have creative kids?  Have you lost a loved one?  Then, this idea is for you!

Make a calendar to remind you to pray daily for our beloved dead.

It's super easy to do.

Simply create an image that reminds you of November, and, then, glue it and a calendar grid onto a piece of cardstock.

You may also want to expand this art project into a full lesson, teaching (or reminding) your children about All Souls Day, the monthly dedication to pray for the dead, opportunities to help the dearly departed through gaining an indulgence for them, pairing your project with Eternal Rest copywork or with a STEAM design challenge.

Or you can make it into an art, faith, and poetry lesson as we did this past week in our Art, Music, and Poetry club.

{Some links which follow are affiliate ones.}

We began our club with a brief prayer, and, then, got right into reading about Paul, Jean, and Herman Limbourg in Artists that Shaped the Renaissance.


After chatting briefly about the Limbourg brothers, the time in which they lived, and their art, we did a picture study of Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, October, a beautiful artistic work created by the Limbourg brothers between 1412 and 1416 as a part of a Book of Hours.

The children were wowed by the detail within the reproduction on page 19 of Artists that Shaped the Renaissance.

Then, we looked at a modern Liturgy of the Hours book, chatting about what it is and how it is used before pausing to read a portion of it. 

We read and briefly discussed a psalm, asking the children what stood out to them in the psalm, both in terms of poetic devices and from the perspective of being Christians listening to the Living Word.

Finally, we adapted the art project for Lesson 4 in Artists that Shaped the Renaissance in order to create watercolor paintings of things that remind us of November using watercolor pencils and regular watercolors.

When each of our paintings was completed, we affixed it to a piece of black cardstock and, then, cut out a blank monthly calendar grid to attach below it.

Viola!

Individual calendar pages to be used throughout November to pray for our beloved dead.

Now, we're jotting down names of our dearly departed to pray for on each day of November.  If you'd like us to add the name of your beloved dead to our prayer calendar, please just let us know. 

Here are a few more snapshots of our lesson time:

Also feel free to browse our other All Souls related posts.

 

Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord. And let the perpetual light shine upon them. And may the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.

Take a Few Minutes of Your Day to Help Holy Souls

It's Sunday - a day to set aside for rest and service - and, since it's between November 1-8, one Work of Mercy you can easily partake in is praying for dead.  Indeed, if you go to a cemetery and pray for the dearly departed, you can gain indulgence applied to Holy Souls. 

It's not difficult to do, and it can truly become a beautiful tradition of prayer for you and your family.  I know this, because stopping by a cemeteries to pray for Holy Souls between November 1-8 has become a peaceful and pleasurable annual tradition for my children and me. 

We are blessed to live within walking distance of a cemetery, so some days, we just go for a stroll in order to pray for the dead, visiting familiar graves and noticing new ones. Other days, we invite friends to join us.  And, still other days, we stop at roadside cemeteries on our way to and from activities and errands, sometimes spending only a few minutes to pray and, at other times, making longer forays to explore, pray, and chat.  During these longer stops, so much comes up in conversation - history, art, nature study, precepts of our faith...  It's amazing what a simple stop at a cemetery can elicit.

I truly encourage you to take time to visit a cemetery and pray for Holy Soul today, over he next few days, and even throughout the year.

To Gain an Indulgence by Stopping by a Cemetery to Pray for Holy Souls

After praying for a Holy Soul on All Souls Day at a local cemetery

You can actually gain indulgences for Holy Souls any day of the year by stopping to pray at a cemetery, but doing so between November 1-8 makes the indulgence plenary.  

November is the month the Catholic Church dedicates to remembering Holy Souls, and the Church offers a special eight day opportunity for the faithful to receive an indulgence for a particular soul - a grandparent, a friend, a relative, even an unknown - at the beginning of the month.  On each day between November 1-8, a person seeking a plenary indulgence for a soul must:

"Visit to a Cemetery. 

An indulgence, applicable only to the Souls in Purgatory, is granted to the faithful, who devoutly visit a cemetery and pray, even if only mentally, for the departed. 

The indulgence is plenary each day from the 1st to the 8th of November; on other days of the year it is partial."

A person must also ensure these four conditions:

1. Have an interior disposition of complete detachment from sin, even venial sin.  (If you attempt to receive a plenary indulgence, but are unable to meet this condition, a partial indulgence is received instead.)
2. Sacramentally confess sins 20 days before or after the indulgenced act of visiting a cemetery to pray. (One confession suffices for several plenary indulgences.)
3. Receive the Holy Eucharist 20 days before or after the indulgenced act of visiting a cemetery to pray. (A separate Holy Communion is required for each plenary indulgence.)
4. Pray for the intentions of the Pope. (An Our Father and a Hail Mary are suggested and a separate prayer is required for each plenary indulgence.)

Please join us in praying for the dearly departed!  If you have a particular soul you'd like us to pray for, just let us know, and, also, please join us in praying for unknown souls, as well as for Nana (Theresa), who we lost this year.  Thank you.