I took so many photos the other day in the cemetery that I decided to make a slide show. I had the perfect piece of music in mind from an album I love called Celtic Requiem. It was only after I’d started assembling the pictures and viewed a rough cut with the soundtrack that I realized how appropriate it was for the season. The project became a meditation on the meaning of All Souls Day and a perfect commemoration.
Although I had taken many pictures, once I got them all together I realized I wanted a few more to fill up the length of the song. So I went back yesterday with my camera and went crazy getting all the shots I’d wished I had. Too many! Now I have enough pictures for three slide shows. It was hard to cut some of them, they were all so beautiful; but finally I pruned it down to just enough to fill the song’s five minutes.
So here it is, in honor of All Souls. Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and may perpetual light shine upon them.
The music is a track called “Caoineadh na Mara / Amen” from the album Celtic Requiem by Mary McLaughlin and William Coulter. All the pictures were taken at St. Mary’s cemetery in Peabody, MA and at neighboring St Thomas the Apostle church.
Merciful Father, hear our prayers and console us. As we renew our faith in your Son, whom you raised from the dead, strengthen our hope that all our departed brothers and sisters will share in his resurrection, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Thanks, Melanie!