2023 Sisters of Providence All Souls Day Ceremony

Note: Here is a video of the 2023 Sisters of Providence of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods, Indiana, All Souls Day Ceremony, which took place at the Congregation Cemetery on Thursday, November 2, which features Sisters Jean Fuqua (from left), Lisa Stallings and Kay Manley. Below the video you will find the verbiage spoken by the Sisters of Providence during the annual All Souls Day Ceremony, which takes place in the Congregation Cemetery.

Service For Visiting The Cemetery

Greeting

Leader: Praised by our provident God, who raised Jesus from the dead. Blessed by God for ever.

All: Blessed be God for ever.

Leader: My dear friends, we gather today to pray for our brothers and sisters whose remains lie here in rest. They have passed from death to life in company with Jesus, our brother, who died and rose to new life. We pray that God may welcome them among all the saints in glory.

(Alternate sides while praying the following):

We thank you, God, for these sisters and brothers who were so near and dear to us and who have now been taken from us. We thank you for the friendship that went out from them and for the peace they brought. We thank you that through suffering they learned obedience and that they became people others could love while they were with us here on earth.

We pray that nothing of their lives will be lost, but that it will be of benefit to the world; that all that they held sacred may be respected by us who follow them and that everything in which they were great may continue to mean much to us now that they are dead.,

We ask you that they may go on living in our hearts and minds, our courage and our consciences.

We ask, God, that we who were associated with them may now, because of their deaths, be even more closely associated with each other and that we may, in this togetherness and peace and friendship here on earth, always be deeply conscious of your promise to be faithful to us in death.

You Word Is Near – Huub Oosterhuis, adapted

Reading From Sacred Scripture

Responsorial Psalm 23

(Singing)

General Intercessions

Response: Provident God, hear our prayer.

All: Our Father …

Leader: Eternal rest grant to them, O God,

All: And let perpetual light shine upon them.

Leader: May they rest in peace.

All: Amen.

Leader: May their souls and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.

All: Amen.