LIFE IN ITALY: THE FEASTS OF ALL SAINTS AND ALL SOULS
The November 1 feast of All Saints is a holiday in the Vatican and Italy and is, of course, a holy day of obligation for Catholics.** November 2, feast of All Souls, is also a holiday in the Vatican.
For some years, it was tradition at the Vatican for Popes on November 1 to celebrate Holy Mass for the Solemnity of All Saints at a Rome cemetery, for many years Campo Verano, and, on the following day, November 2, to lead a prayer service in the Vatican Grottoes for all deceased Popes.
Pope Francis, however, has changed that a bit. On All Saints Day, as he did yesterday, he recites the Angelus and on All Souls Day, as he did today, he generally goes to a Rome cemetery to pray and lay flowers at the tombs of some of the deceased and to celebrate Mass, usually giving an off-the-cuff homily. (Daniel Ibáñez/EWTN/Vatican Pool
Today, November 2, 2023, the Holy Father went to the Rome War Cemetery where most of the over 400 buried there are from Commonwealth countries, principally the UK, but also Palestine, South Africa, India, and others.
One important thing marked today’s Mass. This is the first time that publicly, in over a year and a half, Pope Francis actually stood at the altar for parts of the Mass, especially the consecration, and concelebrated. Prior to today, he has remained seated during the Eucharistic celebration and delivered the homily.
In Vatican video today, we see Pope Francis standing at the altar: https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2023-11/pope-francis-all-souls-day-lives-cut-short-war.html)
Italian state television channel RAI 1 broadcast an interview with Pope Francis last night during which he noted the improvement in his knee ailment, for which he has been receiving treatment and spending considerable time in a wheelchair. Noting the improvement, he said, “I can walk properly now.”
He was first seen publicly in a wheelchair on May 5, 2022, when he was wheeled onto the stage in the Paul VI Hall for a Wednesday general audience. Pope Francis has for years suffered from sciatica and that has affected how he walks.
Tomorrow, November 3, Francis will celebrate Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica for the repose of the souls of Pope emeritus Benedict XVI and the cardinals and bishops who died over the past year.
November 1 – the feast of All Saints – is such an important day for Italians that newspapers – and now social media and websites – publish special inserts on how to get to a city’s cemeteries, where to park cars, what shuttle buses are available within cemeteries, etc. Cemetery hours – usually longer in the October 29 to November 5 “remembrance” period – are posted, as are the hours and routes of the “C” busses (“C” for cimitero or cemetery).
In Rome there are 12 cemeteries and each one has special rules and regulations and opening hours. The larger ones will also have free shuttles buses (because no cars will be allowed) to take people to the graves of loved ones. In Rome’s largest cemetery, Verano, 16 stops have been programmed for these buses.
About one million people visit Rome’s cemeteries in the annual weeklong period dedicated to the deceased. The city always make a concerted effort at this time of year to clean cemeteries of trash, to repair walkways and even headstones and to do some serious gardening. Visitors too will clean tombs, bring fresh flowers and entire families will meet to mourn their dearly departed as well as to celebrate their lives.
Afterwards family members will usually all go out for lunch or dinner, sometimes even taking a picnic lunch along to eat at cemeteries where it is allowed as this is what the very first Christians did when they gathered at burial grounds or in the catacombs.
Just about any Italian tradition seems to be linked to food, as you will see!
Thelocal.it, an online publication in English, annually publishes interesting stories on how Italians mark All Saints and All Souls in different regions. A story from last year:
“In Sicily, children hunt for treats left by loving relatives no longer around. In northern Italy people leave their homes empty in case the dead want to visit. All over the country, Italians set an empty place at the table for people who no longer sit there.
“Some believe that the spirits of those departed return to earth on this day. To welcome them, one common Italian tradition was to set an extra place at the table or even put out a tray of food for invisible visitors.
“In Sicily, those who return bring something with them. Children who’ve been good and remembered dead relatives in their prayers all year long are rewarded with gifts of toys and sweets, sometimes hidden around the house on the morning of November 2nd.
“Elsewhere it’s customary for the living to give gifts. In Sardinia children go from house to house on All Souls’ Day collecting treats of cakes, nuts and dried fruit in exchange for a prayer for the deceased. And in Emilia Romagna the poor are entitled to “carità di murt”: charity in the name of the dead, in the form of donated food or money.
“Each region has its own variation on dolci dei morti, sweets of the dead, treats meant to sweeten the bitterness of death. Usually simple white biscuits, they’re typically baked in the form of a bone as an edible memento mori.
“Another variation is fave dei morti, beans of the dead, small ground almond cakes in the shape of a bean. They’re sometimes given as gifts between lovers on All Souls’ Day – either as a comfort or a pledge to be faithful “’til death do us part”.
“A more savoury tradition is a special stuffed bread seasoned with chilli, which some southern Italians would take to be blessed at All Souls’ Day mass before eating it. The spicy filling was supposed to allow whoever ate it to take on burning punishment on behalf of souls suffering in purgatory, thereby offering them some relief.”
One Rome paper a few years back even published a survey on the cost of funerals, saying “there is some meager consolation for those in mourning in the capital of Rome because a funeral there costs the least” of all cities questioned for the survey. On the average they can run from $2,500 to $8,000 in Rome. These prices usually include a walnut coffin with zinc interior, flowers, the burial and documents.
However, says the paper, the best bargain is still a funeral paid for by the city, with Turin being the best buy at 660 Euro or $844, and Genoa being the costliest at 2,000 Euro or $2,560. I’ve not been able to find updates for those prices but am guessing they have changed since I first saw them several years ago.
Prices for flowers greatly increase at this time of year and I learned a hard lesson my first year in Rome.
It was the very end of October and I went to a private clinic to visit a friend who had just had serious surgery. I wanted to bring Lina an impressive bouquet of flowers to cheer her up but my budget did not allow for “impressive.” So I did the best I could. I bought about 8 or 10 chrysanthemums – being bigger flowers, they seemed more impressive as a bouquet. Surely just the thing to bring a smile to Lina’s face!
Well, I knew the minute I walked into the room that something was wrong. I saw a strange look on Lina’s face (and also on the face of a cousin visiting her, a priest), but never for a minute did I associate it with the flowers. We chatted and visited and faces seemed to brighten up, so I dismissed the first impression I had received that something was wrong.
Only much later did I learn that chrysanthemums are viewed by Italians as the flower of the dead and are the flowers that most people bring to place on the graves of their loved ones! Fortunately for me, Lina and Fr. John were wonderful, understanding friends who, some time later, gently told me that bringing chrysanthemums to someone in the hospital just days before the feast of All Saints is just not done! (Actually they seem to frown on flowers in hospitals at other times of the year as well.)
Like other hard-learned lessons in Italy, this was one mistake I never repeated.
Today, Italians visit cemeteries in huge numbers, cleaning the graves of their loved ones and bringing votive candles as well as armloads of flowers, especially chrysanthemums. The price of flowers can rise steeply twice a year – on November 1 and 2 and on December 8, the feast of the Immaculate Conception.
On that day in Rome people bring flowers to the Piazza di Spagna, Rome’s celebrated Spanish Steps, placing them at the base of the column with the statue of Mary Immaculate or on a table near the column. The loose flowers are then woven by priests and brothers into large bouquets or wreaths and placed near or on the column.
** To learn about holy days of obligation (and Nov. 1 is such a holy day), read on: https://www.omvusa.org/blog/catholic-holy-days-of-obligation/
Joan's Rome 