Autumn Brings Thoughts of All Souls Day

With Autumn now officially upon us, the warmth and greenery of summer beginning to wane, replaced now by cooler days, golden crops and trees which are beginning to show forth some of their seasonal colour, my mind turned to a consideration of some of the forthcoming days on the liturgical calendar, most particularly All Souls Day.

Each year, I have encouraged our priests to recover the tradition of using unbleached beeswax candles (not to mention black vestments in the case of the modern form of the Roman liturgy) for Masses of the Dead, particularly All Souls Day. Of course, if one is to follow through with this suggestion, unless you have a well-appointed sacristy which already has such candles readily available for liturgical use, you are going to have to plan ahead, source out, and order such candles in time for All Souls Day. No doubt, this would mean acting now.

To assist our sacristans and priests in this, I wished to draw your attention to a similar post made last year, Sourcing Unbleached Beeswax Altar Candles. I would particularly draw your attention to the comments, where readers shared various sources for such candles.

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Related reading:

Further Questions about the Symbolism of Unbleached Beeswax Candles

Constructing the Catafalque

Using Black Vestments