The liturgical day that offers the priest or liturgist the most choices, the Commemoration of All The Faithful Departed, aka All Souls’ Day, arrives on Sunday this liturgical year. Is next weekend’s preacher prepared? Have you informed your parish lectors? Do you use the “recommended” readings your missalette publisher, your ordo, or your homily service provides? Are there particular pastoral issues to address to your community, and do you consider them?
Sit in the chair and decide which of the readings from the Order of Christian Funerals (Masses of the Dead) you would use.
While we’re close to the topic, how would you handle All Saints’ Day this year? Ordinarily, it’s an obligatory holy day in most of the Catholic world. In the US, landing on a Saturday lifts the obligation to attend. How would you alter either your daily Mass schedule or your holy day schedule to provide for its celebration?
The image, left, by the way, is from Chicago’s All Saints Antiochian Orthodox Church web page.
Catholic Sensibility 
We use the “recommended” readings provided for in the misselette. In an ideal world, I would like to switch them around year-to-year, but in a parish where much of the assembly is ESL, the proclaimed Word has to match what is printed.