Remembering All Souls (Day) + Free All Souls Printable Pack!

A few years back I was “volun-told” to help with our parish All Saints Day party 🤪 I was relatively new to the parish at the time and was looking forward to helping how I could and meeting my fellow team mates! What I came out of our first meeting with was entirely unexpected... perspective.

I came home asking myself, “Am I doing enough to teach my children about why we pray for the dead?” You see, growing up we went to Mass on All Souls Day and prayed for our relatives that had passed away, but I didn’t know (or didn’t remember) why that was important!

In this meeting I learned that the parish would be accepting candy donations, each labeled with a deceased loved one’s name, to be passed out at the All Saints party. The purpose was two-fold: what kid (or adult, let’s be honest) doesn’t love candy? 🍫 AND let’s get our families to start praying for the souls of the faithful departed. (Get our FREE candy prayer tag here!) The idea was that as you eat a piece of candy you say a short prayer for the name written on your piece. How simple and effective! I took this idea home and we applied it to our kids’ Halloween candy. Suddenly, my kids began asking a lot of questions about why we pray for the dead. I simplified it as best I could for their 4 and 6 year old brains:

Those that have died and are awaiting Heaven cannot pray their way into Heaven - it’s our job to do that for them!

At this time I was teaching middle school theology and I decided it would be fun to take this same concept and bring it to the classroom. Thus began some important lessons on the Church Militant, the Church Penitent, and the Church Triumphant 😇 I also sent home a plea to our families to donate candy, labeled with names of deceased souls we could pray for, and send it back in with their child so we could “trick-or-treat” around the school! 🍬 That day is still one of my favorite school memories of teaching! I divided up the candy and gave some to our principal, secretary, parish priest, and the ladies in the church office. All day long I marched class after class all over our campus to trick-or-treat, then we came back to the classroom and made a litany of souls to pray for. They all got so much candy that every day in class for the month of November they could start class with a piece of candy while praying for that soul! I kept that tradition going every year after that 😊

Who knew something so simple could have such a positive impact? It certainly did within the walls of our home, but it also meant a lot to my students! Suddenly, someone who donated a bag of candy where each piece said their grandparent’s name on it knew that dozens of students were now praying for their soul - AMAZING!

So if I can make any suggestion of ways to get your family praying this November, it would be to try and add a sense of reverence for the dead into your trick-or-treating by talking it through at home and making your own litany for those in your family that have died. Make a fun time out of labeling their candy pieces and then every time your kiddo gets to have a piece (or pieces) of candy, encourage them to pray for that soul and those on their litany!

Download our FREE All Souls Day Activity pack that includes:

"My Litany of Saints" template & Prayer candy labels in this post so that you!

Download here!

I hope you have a blessed All Souls Day! Memento Mori ☠️