All Souls Day 2026: what it means and how to pray for the dead
On Monday, November 2, the Church remembers everyone who has died in faith and prays for them. Where the day came from, how it differs from All Saints, and how Christians keep it around the world.
The MySavior teamUpdated · 8 min read
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
Matthew 5:4 · BSB
I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in Me will live, even though he dies.
From John 11:25 · BSB
All Souls Day, on Monday, November 2, 2026, is the day the Church sets aside to remember and pray for all the faithful departed: every Christian who has died, from the great-grandparents in old photographs to the friend we lost this spring. It comes the day after All Saints, and its Catholic name says it plainly: the Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed.
If All Saints feels like a celebration, All Souls feels like a family visit to the cemetery. It is quieter. People bring flowers and candles, read names aloud, go to an early Mass, and sit by a grave a little longer than they meant to. Grief is allowed on this day. So is hope.
Below is what the day means, where it began, how Catholics, Orthodox and Protestants pray for the dead, and how it is kept from Mexico to Sicily, with a few verses from the Berean Standard Bible and a short prayer to say on November 2.
What the day is
A day for everyone who has died in faith
All Souls Day is not about famous saints, and it is not about ghosts. It is about our own dead: parents, husbands and wives, children, friends. It is also for the people nobody remembers anymore, who have no one left to pray for them. The Church gathers them all into one day and prays for them, with names and without.
Behind it lies a simple conviction. Death does not cut the bond between Christians. Those who belong to Christ still belong to one another, and love can still do something for the dead: it can pray.
The difference
All Saints and All Souls: two days, two moods
In Catholic teaching, the difference is purgatory. The saints are with God already. The souls remembered on November 2 may still be being made ready for him, and the prayers of the living help them. So the Church keeps the two days side by side: first it celebrates where we are going, then it prays for those still on the way.
A short history
Where it began: a Burgundy abbey, around the year 1000
Burgundy, FranceCluny AbbeyPrayer for the dead is far older than this day. The feast itself came from Cluny, the great Benedictine abbey in Burgundy. Its abbot, Odilo, ordered every monastery under Cluny to keep the day after All Saints as a day of prayer for all the faithful departed. Tradition dates his decree to 998; some historians place it a few decades later.
The custom spread from Cluny’s houses to other monasteries and then to the dioceses; Liège, under Bishop Notger, is named as the first. Rome adopted November 2 in the thirteenth century. In 1915, as the dead of the First World War kept mounting, Pope Benedict XV allowed every priest to celebrate three Masses on All Souls Day, a privilege still in force.
Words heard at many funerals
John 11:25–26
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in Me will live, even though he dies. And everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?”
John 11:25–26 · BSB
Jesus says this to Martha in Bethany, four days after her brother Lazarus was laid in the tomb. She has just told him that if he had come sooner, Lazarus would not have died. He does not argue with her grief. He gives her someone to hold on to: “I am the resurrection and the life.”
This passage is one of the Gospels the Church offers for funerals, and it is a good question to carry to the cemetery on November 2. Not “do you understand death?” but “Do you believe this?”
Mass, the cemetery, and a week of prayer
How Catholics pray for the dead
For Catholics, the heart of the day is the Mass. Families ask for Masses to be offered for their own dead, and many parishes read out the names of everyone buried in the past year. The Catechism grounds the practice in Scripture, pointing to the Second Book of Maccabees, where Judas Maccabeus has a sin offering made for soldiers who died in battle, and it commends prayer, almsgiving and works of penance on behalf of the dead (paragraph 1032).
Then there is the cemetery. From November 1 to 8, Catholics who visit a cemetery and pray for the dead can gain a plenary indulgence for the souls in purgatory, on the usual conditions: confession, Communion and a prayer for the Pope’s intentions. The simplest graveside prayer is centuries old: “Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May they rest in peace. Amen.”
Orthodox and Protestant churches
Soul Saturdays, and names read aloud
The Orthodox Church has no November 2. Instead it prays for the dead on several Saturdays of Souls through the year, Saturday because Christ lay in the tomb on that day. A memorial service is sung, and koliva, boiled wheat sweetened with honey, is blessed and shared in memory of the dead.
At the Reformation, most Protestant churches set All Souls aside along with the doctrine of purgatory, and folded the remembrance into All Saints. In the nineteenth century, parishes shaped by the Oxford Movement began to keep it again, and the Church of England’s calendar now includes it as the Commemoration of the Faithful Departed. Many Lutheran and Methodist congregations remember their dead on All Saints Sunday instead, giving thanks for each one by name.
How the world keeps it
Marigolds, soul cakes and sugar sweets
In Mexico, Día de Muertos runs over November 1 and 2. Families build an ofrenda at home or at the grave, with photographs, the favorite foods of the dead and sweet pan de muerto, and scatter orange cempasúchil marigolds, whose color and scent are said to lead the souls home. UNESCO added the tradition to its list of intangible cultural heritage in 2008.
In Ecuador, November 2 means colada morada, a thick purple drink of black corn and berries, served with guaguas de pan, little breads shaped like swaddled children. In Sicily, children wake to a basket of sweets, fruit and small gifts said to be left by relatives who have died. In the Philippines, families spend Undas at the graves, cleaning, praying and eating together. And in Britain and Ireland, the poor and children once went “souling” from door to door, praying for the souls of each household in return for a small spiced cake marked with a cross.
For anyone grieving this year
Matthew 5:4
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
Matthew 5:4 · BSB
If someone you love died this year, November 2 can be hard. Jesus does not call mourners weak or faithless. He calls them blessed, and he promises comfort, not a deadline for getting over it. Light a candle. Say the name out loud. Grief is one of the ways love keeps going.
On your iPhone
All Souls on your Lock Screen
MySavior’s Saint of the Day widget puts one saint or feast on your Home Screen or Lock Screen for each day of the year, and it changes by itself at midnight. On November 1 it shows All Saints; on November 2, All Souls; on November 3, Martin de Porres, the Dominican brother of Lima. The whole November calendar is on this site too.
The countdown widget counts down to 30 feasts of the year, All Saints among them, so the first days of November never catch you by surprise.
Sun 8 Blessed John Duns Scotus
9:41
Saint of the Day on your Lock ScreenOn November 2, MySavior’s Saint of the Day widget shows All Souls. Its countdown keeps All Saints and the other great feasts of the year in view.
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To say on November 2
A prayer for All Souls Day
Lord Jesus, you wept at the grave of your friend. Remember all who have died in faith, and those who have no one left to remember them. Have mercy on them, forgive what was left undone, and bring them into your light. Comfort everyone who misses them, and when our own time comes, gather us together again in your kingdom. Amen.
Say it at a grave, beside a candle at home, or on the way to work. Then name your own dead, one by one, slowly. If you can no longer quite picture someone’s face, God can. That is enough.
A small practice for this week
Write down the names of the people you have lost: family, friends, the neighbor who always waved, the baby who died too soon. Keep the list in your Bible through November, which many Catholics call the month of the holy souls. On November 2, light a candle, read the names aloud, and pray the Eternal Rest once for each. If a grave is near, go and tidy it. Bring a flower. Stay a few minutes longer than you planned.
Keep the feasts and the saints close all year
Bible verse and prayer widgets you design yourself, a countdown to the feasts of the year, and a saint for every day.
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Questions
When is All Souls Day 2026?
All Souls Day is Monday, November 2, 2026, the day after All Saints. It is always November 2; in 2027 it falls on Tuesday, November 2, 2027. In the Catholic Church it stays on November 2 even when that date is a Sunday.
What is the difference between All Saints Day and All Souls Day?
All Saints Day (November 1) celebrates everyone already with God in heaven. All Souls Day (November 2) remembers all the faithful departed and prays for them, in Catholic teaching especially for the souls in purgatory. In short: on All Saints the Church celebrates, and on All Souls it prays and remembers.
Is All Souls Day a holy day of obligation?
No. Catholics are not required to go to Mass on All Souls Day, though many do, and every priest may celebrate three Masses that day. All Saints Day, November 1, is the holy day of obligation in many countries.
What are the Bible readings for All Souls Day?
The Church allows a choice of readings from the Masses for the Dead. A common set is Wisdom 3:1–9, Psalm 23, Romans 5:5–11 (or Romans 6:3–9) and John 6:37–40, where Jesus promises to lose none of those the Father has given him. Every verse quoted in this article is from the Berean Standard Bible (BSB).
