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All Souls' Day, also called The Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed, is a day of prayer and remembrance for the faithful departed, observed by Christians on 2 November. In Western Christianity, including Roman Catholicism and certain parts of Lutheranism and Anglicanism, All Souls' Day is the third day of Allhallowtide, after All Saints' Day and All Hallows' Eve. Before the standardization of Western Christian observance on 2 November by St. Odilo of Cluny in the 10th century, many Roman Catholic congregations celebrated All Souls' Day on various dates during the Easter season as it is still observed in the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Eastern Catholic churches and the Eastern Lutheran churches. Churches of the East Syriac Rite commemorate all the faithful departed on the Friday before Lent. As with other days of the Allhallowtide season, popular practices for All Souls Day include attending Mass offered for the souls of the faithful departed, as well as Christian families visiting graveyards in order to pray and decorate their family graves with garlands, flowers, candles and incense. Given that many Christian cemeteries are interdenominational in nature, All Souls Day observances often have an ecumenical dimension, with believers from various Christian denominations praying together and cooperating to adorn graves.
Samhain or Sauin is a Gaelic festival on 1 November marking the end of the harvest season and beginning of winter or the "darker half" of the year. It is also the Irish and Scottish Gaelic name for November. Celebrations begin on the evening of 31 October, since the Celtic day began and ended at sunset. This is about halfway between the autumnal equinox and winter solstice. It is one of the four Gaelic seasonal festivals along with Imbolc, Bealtaine, and Lughnasa. Historically it was widely observed throughout Ireland, Scotland, and the Isle of Man. Its Brittonic Celtic equivalent is called Calan Gaeaf in Wales.
The veneration of the dead, including one's ancestors, is based on love and respect for the deceased. In some cultures, it is related to beliefs that the dead have a continued existence, and may possess the ability to influence the fortune of the living. Some groups venerate their direct, familial ancestors. Certain religious groups, in particular the Eastern Orthodox Churches, Anglican Church, and Catholic Church venerate saints as intercessors with God; the latter also believes in prayer for departed souls in Purgatory. Other religious groups, however, consider veneration of the dead to be idolatry and a sin.
Yule is a winter festival historically observed by the Germanic peoples that was incorporated into Christmas during the Christianisation of the Germanic peoples. In present times adherents of some new religious movements celebrate Yule independently of the Christian festival. Scholars have connected the original celebrations of Yule to the Wild Hunt, the god Odin, and the heathen Anglo-Saxon Mōdraniht. The term Yule and cognates are still used in English and the Scandinavian languages as well as in Finnish and Estonian to describe Christmas and other festivals occurring during the winter holiday season. Furthermore, some present-day Christmas customs and traditions such as the Yule log, Yule goat, Yule boar, Yule singing, and others may have connections to older pagan Yule traditions.
Michaelmas is a Christian festival observed in many Western Christian liturgical calendars on 29 September, and on 8 November in the Eastern Christian traditions. Michaelmas has been one of the four quarter days of the English and Irish financial, judicial, and academic year.
Symbel (OE) and sumbl (ON) are Germanic terms for "feast, banquet".
An agape feast or lovefeast is a term used for various communal meals shared among Christians. The name comes from the Greek word ἀγάπη (agape), which implies love in the sense of brotherly or familial affection.
Mourning is the expression of an experience that is the consequence of an event in life involving loss, causing grief. It typically occurs as a result of someone's death, often someone who was loved, although loss from death is not exclusively the cause of all experience of grief.
A libation is a ritual pouring of a liquid as an offering to a deity or spirit, or in memory of the dead. It was common in many religions of antiquity and continues to be offered in cultures today.
Blót or geblōt are religious ceremonies in Germanic paganism that centred on the killing and offering of an animal to a particular being, typically followed by the communal cooking and eating of its meat. Old Norse sources present it as a central ritual in Old Nordic religion that was intimately connected with many wider aspects of life. Large blót are often described as taking place in halls, organised by the rulers of the region who were expected to carry out the practice on behalf of the people. Blót were central to the legitimacy of rulers and Christian rulers refusing to hold them were at times replaced by more willing alternatives and driven out of the land. Smaller, household blót were sometimes recorded as being led by women. Beyond strengthening legitimacy for the ruling elites, the performance of blót was often in order to ensure the fertility of the land, a good harvest and peace, although they are also recorded as being performed for divination or to achieve desired results in legal matters.
A wake, funeral reception or visitation is a social gathering associated with death, held before a funeral. Traditionally, a wake involves family and friends keeping watch over the body of the dead person, usually in the home of the deceased. Some wakes are held at a funeral home or another convenient location. The wake or the viewing of the body is a part of death rituals in many cultures. It allows one last interaction with the dead, providing a time for the living to express their thoughts and feelings with the deceased. It highlights the idea that the loss is borne by the whole community and is a way of honoring the deceased member. The emotional tone of a wake is sometimes seen as more positive than a funeral due to the socially supportive atmosphere and the focus on the life rather than the death of the deceased.
Roman funerary practices include the Ancient Romans' religious rituals concerning funerals, cremations, and burials. They were part of time-hallowed tradition, the unwritten code from which Romans derived their social norms. Elite funeral rites, especially processions and public eulogies, gave the family opportunity to publicly celebrate the life and deeds of the deceased, their ancestors, and the family's standing in the community. Sometimes the political elite gave costly public feasts, games and popular entertainments after family funerals, to honour the departed and to maintain their own public profile and reputation for generosity. The Roman gladiator games began as funeral gifts for the deceased in high status families.
Oblation, meaning "the act of offering; an instance of offering" and by extension "the thing offered", is a term used, particularly in ecclesiastical use, for a solemn offering, sacrifice or presentation to God, to the Church for use in God's service, or to the faithful, such as giving alms to the poor.
As currently used, the terms Chapter Mass and Conventual Mass refer to the Mass celebrated by and for a community of priests or for a community of priests and brothers or sisters.
The Beautiful Festival of the Valley was an ancient Egyptian festival, celebrated annually in Thebes, during the Middle Kingdom period and later.
Aztec cuisine is the cuisine of the former Aztec Empire and the Nahua peoples of the Valley of Mexico prior to European contact in 1519.
A death anniversary is the anniversary of the death of a person. It is the opposite of birthday. It is a custom in several Asian cultures, including Azerbaijan, Armenia, Cambodia, China, Georgia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, India, Myanmar, Iran, Israel, Japan, Bangladesh, Korea, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, Russia, Sri Lanka and Vietnam, as well as in other places with significant overseas Chinese, Japanese, Jewish, Korean, and Vietnamese populations, to observe the anniversary on which a family member or other significant individual died. There are also similar memorial services that are held at different intervals, such as every week.
An aonach or óenach was an ancient Irish public national assembly called upon the death of a king, queen, or notable sage or warrior as part of ancestor worship practices. As well as the entertainment, the óenach was an occasion on which kings and notables met under truce and where laws were pronounced and confirmed.
Norse religious worship is the traditional religious rituals practiced by Norse pagans in Scandinavia in pre-Christian times. Norse religion was a folk religion, and its main purpose was the survival and regeneration of society. Therefore, the faith was decentralized and tied to the village and the family, although evidence exists of great national religious festivals. The leaders managed the faith on behalf of society; on a local level, the leader would have been the head of the family, and nationwide, the leader was the king. Pre-Christian Scandinavians had no word for religion in a modern sense. The closest counterpart is the word siðr, meaning custom. This meant that Christianity, during the conversion period, was referred to as nýr siðr while paganism was called forn siðr. The center of gravity of pre-Christian religion lay in religious practice – sacred acts, rituals and worship of the gods.
Month's Mind is a piece for piano solo composed in 1935 by John Ireland.
References
- ↑ "trental" . Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press.(Subscription or participating institution membership required.)
- ↑ month's mind. Merriam-Webster dictionary . Retrieved 2010-08-24.
- ↑ . Encyclopædia Britannica . Vol. 13 (11th ed.). 1911. p. 121.
see para: Drinking of Healths.—The custom of drinking "health" to the living is most probably derived from the ancient religious rite of drinking to the gods and the dead. The Greeks and Romans at meals poured out libations to their gods, and at ceremonial banquets drank to them and to the dead. The Norsemen drank the "minni" of Thor, Odin and Freya, and of their kings at their funeral feasts. With the advent of Christianity the pagan custom survived among the Scandinavian and Teutonic peoples. Such festal formulae as "God's minne!" "A bowl to God in Heaven!" occur, and Christ, the Virgin and the Saints were invoked, instead of heathen gods and heroes. The Norse "minne" was at once love, memory and thought of the absent one, and it survived in medieval and later England in the "minnying" or "mynde" days, on which the memory of the dead was celebrated by services and feasting.
- ↑ Compare: Blount, Thomas (1670) [1656]. "Minnyng days". Glossographia: Or, A Dictionary, Interpreting the Hard Words of Whatsoever Language, Now Used in Our Refined English Tongue; with Etymologies, Definitions, and Historical Observations on the Same. Also the Terms of Divinity, Law, Physick, Mathematicks, War, Music, and Other Arts and Sciences explicated. [...] (3 ed.). London: Tho. Newcomb. p. 417. Retrieved 7 November 2023.
- ↑ McNally, Frank (15 July 2021). "Mind the Gap – Frank McNally on a great Irish institution, the month's mind, from Shakespeare to Joyce". The Irish Times .
- ↑ Regan, Jarlath (November 30, 2020). "'Once you have had your month's mind, you are no longer entitled to be sad or grieve in any way'". Independent.ie .
- This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain : Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Month's Mind". Encyclopædia Britannica . Vol. 18 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 786.
