Daylight Saving Time ends next Sunday, November 3, at 2 am. Don’t forget to set the time one hour back in your clocks at home.
All Saints Day is a Holy Day of Obligation, which means that the faithful are obligated to attend Mass. Here is our Mass schedule for All Saints Day, Friday, November 1: Mass in Chinese at 12 noon and Mass in English at 7:00 pm.
We will have a Mass in Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed on Saturday, November 2: Mass in Chinese at 12 noon. For the benefit of our parishioners who cannot come to church on November 2, you may bring framed pictures of your departed loved ones to church for a special prayer for the dead after the 10:30 am Mass on Sunday, November 3rd.
How You Can Help the Holy Souls in Purgatory
There’s only one door out of purgatory for the Holy Souls, and it opens into heaven. But here’s the catch: they can’t open it themselves. We have to open it for them. Will we help unlock it for some of them during this month of November, which the Church dedicates to the Holy Souls?
Every year from November 1 to 8, the Church grants an indulgence (an indulgence is a remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven) that can be applied only to the souls in purgatory. The faithful can receive this indulgence each of the eight days to apply to a particular soul — a parent, spouse, relative, friend, or anyone even unknown. In order to gain any indulgence, the baptized person must go to confession and receive Holy Communion, pray one Our Father and one Hail Mary for the intentions of the pope.
In order to gain a plenary indulgence, a baptized person must be in a state of grace, and: (1) devoutly visit a cemetery and pray, if only mentally, for the departed; (2) on All Souls’ Day devoutly visit a church and recite an Our Father and the Creed.
In order to gain the partial indulgence, a baptized person must: (1) devoutly visit a cemetery and at least mentally praying for the dead; (2) devoutly recite lauds or vespers from the Office of the Dead or the prayer, “Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May they rest in peace. Amen.”