Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed (All Souls’ Day)

On this second day of November, the Navassan Reformed Catholic Church, the established church of the Kingdom, keeps the Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed. The Crown commends this observance to all who wish to join in it, within the Kingdom and across the diaspora.

All Souls follows All Saints and is the Church’s day for remembering the ordinary dead: parents and grandparents, friends and neighbours, and all whose names are known only to those who loved them. In the high-church tradition it is kept with prayers for the departed and with thanksgiving for lives lived among us.

The Crown also acknowledges that in Haiti these same days are kept as Fèt Gede, when families gather at the graves of their ancestors in remembrance and in joy. The Kingdom honours this tradition as part of the heritage from which it draws. It is acknowledged here with respect, alongside the Church’s observance and not as part of it.

“We do not forget our dead, and they are not lost to God. Today we remember the faithful who crossed before us, and the ones whose names no one now speaks. We give thanks for what they gave us, and we ask for mercy for all who have died. Let us also tend the living, for remembrance is a kind of love that continues. May light perpetual shine upon them.”
— The Royal Chaplaincy