All Souls and All Saints Days
Overview
This page contains prayers suitable for school community prayer (e.g. staff prayer) during the week of All Souls and All Saints Days
The prayers are also available in PDF format.
Prayer Ritual
All Saints and All Souls Day Prayer Ritual, PDF
We Gather
Leader: At this time each year, we focus on the great communion of saints:
- On All Saints Day, the wonderful company of saints we know as part of the reality of our Catholic tradition;
- On All Souls Day – those who have died – Friends, colleagues, relatives... other leaders whom we have known... worked with... laughed with... wept with... walked with... Many of them are not famous. Their statues are not in churches but their pictures are in our homes and their stories alive in our community, and in us. We know of their goodness and their struggles. We now pray for them, and remember them with love, celebrating in faith their journey to God, now within the great communion of saints.
The Candle is lit …
Reader: We pray for past staff of our Brisbane Catholic Education school communities and offices... as we remember them, we give thanks for the sharing of their gifts and talents and we light this candle in their name.
All: We light this candle.
We say this prayer.
We light this candle in their name
Reader: We pray for those who today, mourn someone they love... We light a candle in their name.
All: We light this candle.
We say this prayer.
We light this candle in their name
Reader: We pray in silence for all those we have loved….We light a candle in their name.
All: We light this candle.
We say this prayer.
We light this candle in their name
We Listen
We listen to the words of Paul in the letter to the Ephesians. (3:19 - 21 modified translation)
“My response is to get down on my knees before God, this magnificent Creator who parcels out all heaven and earth.
I ask God to strengthen you in the Spirit—not a brute strength but a glorious inner strength—that Christ will live in you as you open the door and invite him in.
And I ask that with both feet planted firmly in love, and built on love, you'll be able to take in with every follower of Jesus, and all the saints, the extravagant dimensions of Christ's love, which is beyond all knowing.
Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God.
And this is the Word of God.
All: Glory to God!
Glory down all the generations!
Glory through all millennia!
We Respond
Our Circle of Saints – A Litany
Reader: St Mary in all our names for you - Mother of God, Immaculate Heart, Our Lady of Fatima and Mt Carmel and Lourdes, Our Lady of the Mount and of the Rosary, Our Lady of the Assumption and Queen of Apostles, Our Lady of the Sacred Heart and of the Way, Star of the Sea, Our Lady of Good Counsel and Help of All Christians, Our Lady of Dolours and Our Lady of the Angels, …
All: Pray for us
Reader: St Joseph, St Agnes, St Brendan and St Elizabeth
All: Pray for us
Reader: St Bernard, St Ambrose, St Mark and St Eugene
All: Pray for us
Reader: St Teresa, St Benedict, St Ignatius and St Augustine
All: Pray for us
Reader: St Vincent, St Columban, St Pius and St Thomas Aquinas
All: Pray for us
Reader: St Elisabeth Seton, St Edward the Confessor, St John Vianney and St Anthony
All: Pray for us
Reader: St Ita, St Francis, St Catherine of Siena and St John
All: Pray for us
Reader: St Joachim, St Kevin, St Dympna and St Agatha
All: Pray for us
Reader: St Michael, St John Fisher, St Francis Xavier and St Andrew
All: Pray for us
Reader: St Flannan, St Kieran and St Mary of the Cross, MacKillop
All: Pray for us
Reader: St Oliver Plunkett, St Finbarr, St Peter and St Paul
All: Pray for us
Reader: St Peter Claver, St Bernadette, St William and St Luke
All: Pray for us
Reader: St Brigid, St Xavier, St Columba and St Bernard
All: Pray for us
Reader: St Peter Chanel, St Thomas, St Martin and St Matthew
All: Pray for us
Reader: St Rita, St Sebastian, St Patrick and St Thomas More
All: Pray for us
Reader: St Clare, St Ursula, St Catherine Laboure
All: Pray for us
Reader: St Dominic, St Laurence, St Ursula, St Sixtus,
All: Pray for us
Reader: St Stephen, St James, St Scholastica, St Edmund,
All: Pray for us
Reader: Catherine McAuley, John Baptiste de la Salle,
All: Pray for us
Reader: Holy Nano Nagle, Mary Aikenhead, St Madeleine Sophie Barat,
All: Pray for us
Reader: St Marcellin Champagnat and Edmund Rice,
All: Pray for us
Reader: Holy Spirit of Corpus Christi, in Caroline Chisholm, in all of us
All: Pray for us
Reader: Jesus of the Holy Cross, Christ of the Southern Cross
All: Pray for us
Reader: Jesus of the Sacred Heart And the Holy Family, Jesus of Emmaus, Jesus who walks with us
All: Pray for us
Reader: Holy ones of the Celtic lands, Holy Ones of the Great South Land
All: Pray for us
Reader: Michael, the archangel, all saints and all guardian angels
All: Pray for us
Reader: All Holy Men and Women
All: Please, pray for us
We Go Forth
Final Prayer and Blessing
Leader: May all the Saints, pray for us and for all those whose lives we touch.
All: Amen
Leader: May God, Who loves and holds us all,
let the Spirit guide all our days
in the ways of compassion and justice,
All: Amen
Leader: May we reflect the heart of God,
sure in faith,
strong in hope,
built on love
and become all that we are called to be.
All: Amen
Leader: And may our journey lead us into God’s gentle and almighty Presence,
our God whom we will one day see face to face.
All: Amen
Those whom we love and lose are no longer where they were before. They are now wherever we are.
St John Chrysostom