31 October - The Vigil of All Saints

Text taken from The Liturgical Year by Abbot Gueranger, O.S.B.
Translated from the French by the Rev. Dom Laurence Shepherd, O.S.B.
Time After Pentecost. Book V. Fourth Edition. Volume 14.
Re-published by St. Bonaventure Publications, July 2000.
Internet Site: www.libers.com

Illustration and caption are taken from Una Voce of Orange County web-site 
at http://uvoc.org/, which reproduced them, with the kind permission of St. Bonaventure Press,  from The Saint Andrew Daily Missal, 1952 Edition.

The Vigil of All Saints
Violet Vestments

The Church Triumphant,

The Church Militant,

The Church Suffering.

Let us prepare our Souls, for the graces that Heaven is about shower upon the Earth in return for Earth's homage.

Tomorrow, the Church will be so overflowing with joy, that she will seem to be already in possession of eternal happiness; but, today, she appears in the garb of penance (Violet Vestments), confessing that she is still an exile.

Let us fast and pray with her; for are not we, too, pilgrims and strangers in this world, where all things are fleeting and hurry on to death ?

Year by year, as the great Solemnity comes around, it has gathered, from among our former companions, new Saints, who bless our tears and smile upon our songs of hope.

Year by year, the appointed time draws nearer, when we ourselves, seated at the Heavenly banquet, shall receive the homage of those who succeed us, and hold out a helping hand to draw them after us to the home of everlasting happiness.

Let us learn, from this very hour, to emancipate our Souls; let us keep our hearts free, in the midst of the vain solicitudes and false pleasures of a strange land.

The exile has no care but his banishment, no joy but that which gives him a foretaste of his fatherland.

With these thoughts in mind, let us say, with the Church, the Collect of the Vigil:

PRAYER

Domine Deus noster, multiplica super nos gratiam tuam:

et, quorum praevenimus gloriosa solemnia,

tribue subsequi in sancta professione laetitiam.

Per Dominum.

O Lord our God, multiply Thy grace upon us:

and grant us, in our holy profession,

to follow the joy of those,

whose glorious Solemnity we anticipate.

Through our Lord.