Candle for November?

May I ask please if it is a custom where one lights a candle for the entire month of November if a family member has passed away the same year?

My Mother thought she heard something to that effect on the radio recently but I cannot find any confirmation of it online.

Thank you for any help!

katydid

Deleted User wrote: »

May I ask please if it is a custom where one lights a candle for the entire month of November if a family member has passed away the same year?

My Mother thought she heard something to that effect on the radio recently but I cannot find any confirmation of it online.

Thank you for any help!

I've never heard of it, but it's a nice custom.

hinault

Deleted User wrote: »

May I ask please if it is a custom where one lights a candle for the entire month of November if a family member has passed away the same year?

My Mother thought she heard something to that effect on the radio recently but I cannot find any confirmation of it online.

Thank you for any help!

If lighting a candle for the entire month of November is a custom, it is a custom which I have never heard of.

In respect of someone - be they a relative or very close friend - I add their names to the altar list for the deceased. This means that Mass will be offered for that person during the month of November.

lazybones32

It could well be, or have been. My mother told me some of the old customs regarding birth and death and they were interesting. Another custom, that I only read about last night, was a bereaved person would give up the booze for the month of November as a sacrifice for the deceased.
I can't see any reason why that custom shouldn't be done...even if the person has died more than 12 months previously.

cattolico

Deleted User wrote: »

May I ask please if it is a custom where one lights a candle for the entire month of November if a family member has passed away the same year?

My Mother thought she heard something to that effect on the radio recently but I cannot find any confirmation of it online.

Thank you for any help!

Hi, In Poland its pretty common. If you go to a graveyard during all souls there are 10 of thousands of candles lite. There is practically an industry making candles. My wife always keeps a candle alight for her dead father.

Ireland has very different Catholic traditions because faith was underground for a long time. We don't sing a mass, we don't stand at mass.

katydid

cattolico wrote: »

Hi, In Poland its pretty common. If you go to a graveyard during all souls there are 10 of thousands of candles lite. There is practically an industry making candles. My wife always keeps a candle alight for her dead father.

Ireland has very different Catholic traditions because faith was underground for a long time. We don't sing a mass, we don't stand at mass.

They don't sing at mass here either. Choirs sing, but the people don't. Usually.

cattolico

katydid wrote: »

They don't sing at mass here either. Choirs sing, but the people don't. Usually.

I mean't to sat we don't sing. the Poles do sing at mass, and most catholics in most countries do, except the silent Irish.

katydid

cattolico wrote: »

I mean't to sat we don't sing. the Poles do sing at mass, and most catholics in most countries do, except the silent Irish.

Sorry, I thought you mean "we" as in Poles. Apologies.

I don't understand it. It's not an Irish thing, though, - in the Church of Ireland, everyone sings. Whether they can or not! :-)

hinault

cattolico wrote: »

I mean't to sat we don't sing. the Poles do sing at mass, and most catholics in most countries do, except the silent Irish.

I think you'll find that here in Ireland this is beginning to change.

I've noticed at the various Novus Ordo Mass that I have attended in various location that singing hymns - proper hymns and not the "folk group" variety hymn - is very common recently compared to the 1980's/90's.

Of course in the TLM, worship has always been song through large tracts of the Liturgy.:cool:

Mrs OBumble

katydid wrote: »

I don't understand it. It's not an Irish thing, though, - in the Church of Ireland, everyone sings. Whether they can or not! :-)

The Church of Ireland wasn't suppressed, as far as I know

These days, I think it's more to do with laziness / lack of interest, though, and that blaming it on the penal laws is just a cop-out.

cattolico

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

The Church of Ireland wasn't suppressed, as far as I know

These days, I think it's more to do with laziness / lack of interest, though, and that blaming it on the penal laws is just a cop-out.

Correct. If you were Church of Ireland you could sing to your hearts content. If you were Catholic and you sung they would sadly kill the priests.(prior to Catholic emancipation) So the mass was always silent, no singing. Its changing, but that is the reason for the silent Irish at mass. Such is history, but the faith survived the killings.

I heard of a mass where the English found the congregation, an Old man swapped cloths with the priest and the priest survived and the man was martyred.

katydid

cattolico wrote: »

Correct. If you were Church of Ireland you could sing to your hearts content. If you were Catholic and you sung they would sadly kill the priests.(prior to Catholic emancipation) So the mass was always silent, no singing. Its changing, but that is the reason for the silent Irish at mass. Such is history, but the faith survived the killings.

I heard of a mass where the English found the congregation, an Old man swapped cloths with the priest and the priest survived and the man was martyred.

Nice theory - but Roman Catholicism was suppressed in England too, as you point out. And English Roman Catholics sing like canaries

cattolico

katydid wrote: »

Nice theory - but Roman Catholicism was suppressed in England too, as you point out. And English Roman Catholics sing like canaries

Yes they do.. But they were persecuted the same as the Irish.

English Catholics are exceptional, Westminster Cathedral is the shining light in the Catholic English Speaking world. Simply the most spectacular Byzantine style Cathedral, with daily sung mass. Was there last Month for the celebration of St. Edward the Confessor and it was unforgettable. The choir, the whole celebration. I don't know why, but English Catholics have such a clear identity and conviction. Then I forget the hundreds of English Martyrs who died for their Catholic Faith. Their blood fertilised the garden that grows today.

katydid

cattolico wrote: »

Yes they do.. But they were persecuted the same as the Irish.

English Catholics are exceptional, Westminster Cathedral is the shining light in the Catholic English Speaking world. Simply the most spectacular Byzantine style Cathedral, with daily sung mass. Was there last Month for the celebration of St. Edward the Confessor and it was unforgettable. The choir, the whole celebration. I don't know why, but English Catholics have such a clear identity and conviction. Then I forget the hundreds of English Martyrs who died for their Catholic Faith. Their blood fertilised the garden that grows today.

But my point is that they were persecuted, but they love to sing. So the theory that suppression is the reason for people not singing doesn't hold water...

cattolico

katydid wrote: »

But my point is that they were persecuted, but they love to sing. So the theory that suppression is the reason for people not singing doesn't hold water...

The English were persecuted far worse than the Irish. In Ireland it was to Hell or to connacht as Conwell said. There were pockets of Irish who were left life in peace. In England it was brutal.

I don't know why, but with Emancipation the English Catholics rebuilt their church, Its really strange, they are so different to Irish.

I remember being in London on the 27th of June and they hundreds of Catholics visiting the relics of Saint John Southworth. English Catholics were soaked in the bloods of so many martyrs. I think they see their faith in a very different light to the Irish as they were a minority. If your family kept the faith in the 1600 and 1700.. Then it was a big deal. There was no connacht in England, no place to hide.

For me there no greater place to hear mass in the English speaking world than Westminster Cathedral. It moves me so much.

Peregrinus

I suspect that the English Catholic choral tradition is good because in England the Anglicans (who have a magnificent choral tradition, which they have had since before the English Reformation) are the dominant church, and they set the tone for other churches. Plus, when the Catholic church was reconstructed in England in the nineteenth century, they say themselves as being in competition with the Anglicans, so they very consciously set out to measure up to Anglican standards of choral music. Finally, the English Catholic church that survived through the period of persecution included a section of the social and economic elite - recusant families who had high artistic standards and could patronise church art and music.

The Irish Catholic church, by contrast, was very much a church of the peasantry. The social and economic elite in Ireland either conformed to Anglicanism, or lost their status and possessions. So the Irish Catholic church had neither a taste for choral music, nor much in the way of resources to put into it. And by the time they were reorganising and rebuilding in the nineteenth century, they weren't in competition with Anglicanism in the same was as in England. Anglicanism might still have been the established church, but it was very much a minority church in Ireland.

cattolico

That post reminds me of how Thomas Merton describes the Church of England in his before The Seven Story Mountain.

Mrs OBumble

katydid wrote: »

And English Roman Catholics sing like canaries

Eh? Not in my experience of them. Or according to the people on this forum.

They're not as bad as the Irish, but they certainly don't always sing.