Florida Catholic | All Souls Day

Families offer prayers for loved ones at cemetery Mass

CARLOS BRICENO FLORIDA CATHOLIC ST. PETERSBURG BUREAU EDITOR

Published: 11.05.07

A woman takes a moment to remember and reflect on a loved one after the All Souls Day Mass at Calvary Catholic Cemetery. Bishop Robert N. Lynch and priests with the Diocese of St. Petersburg celebrated the annual open air Mass to honor and pray for the deceased Oct. 2.
ED FOSTER JR. | FC

“Our prayer for them is capable not only of helping them, but also of making their intercession for us effective.”
Catechism of the Catholic Church 958

CLEARWATER | Bob Musselman tried hard to win his battle with leukemia.

“He fought, and he fought, and he fought,” said Mary Ann Musselman, referring to her husband’s 10-year struggle against the disease, which ended with his death Oct. 13.

He would tell his family he was waiting for God, but that God had not come for him yet. When he knew the end was near, he called his friends, his colleagues at work and his sisters.

“He told them he was going to heaven, and he would see them when they got there,” she said.

As she spoke, Mary Ann Musselman stood by a tree at Calvary Catholic Cemetery in Clearwater, surrounded by several grandchildren, her daughter and daughter-in-law, at the spot where a bench will be placed soon with the cremated remains of her husband. They had just attended an outdoor All Souls’ Day Mass at the cemetery Nov. 2. More than 100 people attended the annual Mass. Bishop Robert N. Lynch presided.

The family picked the spot for the bench because it’s near a statue of St. John Vianney, which is the name of the parish Mary Ann Musselman attends in St. Petersburg Beach. Musselman also had her grandsons in mind. The family is praying some may consider the priesthood, and St. John Vianney is known as the patron saint of parish priests.

The night before Bob Musselman died, a priest said Mass in his bedroom, with his family gathered there, she said. Several other priests had visited in earlier weeks to offer spiritual comfort and to give him the anointing of the sick, she said.

“My husband had made it easy for us because he kept telling us he was going to heaven and don’t be sad,” Mary Ann said. “I don’t know what we would do without our faith.”

Her daughter-in-law, Julie Musselman, said the family felt God’s presence at the end of her father-in-law’s life.

“We made it through on grace the last four or five weeks,” she said. “The house was full of grace.”

During his homily, Bishop Lynch reminded the Musselman family and others who have lost loved ones that death is the beginning of a pilgrimage or a journey, which may include purgatory, the place where some may stay to do penance and take part in a process of purification for the sins they’ve committed.

He quoted from the Catechism of the Catholic Church, saying that the faithful have always honored the memory of the dead and that the church encourages prayers because: “Our prayer for them is capable not only of helping them, but also of making their intercession for us effective.”

He said that by praying for those in purgatory, mourners are not only helping them, but also remembering the memories of them and loving them in their absence. The bishop noted the church chooses the entire month of November as a time for people to increase their prayers on behalf of those souls in purgatory.

One woman who attended the Mass, Anne Feeley, said the bishop’s homily was “beautiful,” and she said also she went to Mass the day before, on All Saints’ Day. She said she believes her husband, who died of a heart attack 15 years ago, has made it to heaven already.

Although she has come to the Mass at the cemetery before on All Souls’ Day a couple of times before, she said she plans to make it an annual visit from now on.

“It’s a wonderful feeling to have this,” Feeley said. “I won’t miss it from now on because it’s so beautiful and peaceful, and it helps all of us to find a peace and an acceptance.”

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Families offer prayers for loved ones at cemetery Mass

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