All Souls Saturday
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The first of the All Souls Saturdays for us is this Saturday. There are four more All Souls Saturdays: - Saturday before Meat-Fare Sunday;
- Three Saturdays of Lent before the 2nd, 3rd and 4th Sundays;
- Saturday before Pentecost Sunday.
A book called “Hramoty” is kept in every Byzantine Catholic parish. In this, the names of the dead are kept, listed family groups. These names are sung in the Litany for the Deceased on the All Souls Saturdays.
Praying for the dead reminds us of our own destiny: everyone will die. It gives us the opportunity to reflect on the fleeting nature of earthly life, and should increase our desire to join God in the glory of Heaven, and thus to repent of our sins here on earth. That is why the All Souls Sundays are generally tied to Lent. The one before Pentecost serves as a reminder, that while the Church prays for the descent of the Holy Spirit, the Church continues to pray for the enlightenment of the souls of the deceased.
"We seem to give them back to you, O God, who gave them first to us. Yet as you did not lose them in giving, so we do not lose them by their return. Not as the world gives do you give. What you give you do not take away. For what is yours is also ours. We are yours and life is eternal. And love is immortal, and death is only a horizon, and a horizon is but the limit of our sight." - Bede the Venerable