What is a blessing of graves?

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jesusmademe

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Next weekend the Church will bless graves at two Catholic cemetaries here in Stockholm.
Can anyone tell what will happen? I have been there before but don’t remember much.
What is this all about?
 
At our Parish cemetery, it is an annual event celebrating All Saints and All Souls Days…Family members spruce up the graves, flowers are laid. The priest blesses the graves, prayers are said, and he leads a procession to the Chapel for Mass.
 
We are having Mass outside in the cemetary, then are going to pray at graves there.
 
DIERM said:
Family members spruce up the graves,
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An event mostly for people who knew someone who is buried there? I knew one Priest who are buried at one of the cemetaries. How do you visit a grave site? What to do? I seldom visit grave sites in order to look at a specific graves. I dont even visit the graves of my relatives that often.
What should I do?
 
Don’t worry…just let the Spirit move you!

Because the cemetery is next to my church, when I visit for personal prayer, or for confession, I walk up and down the rows of graves, praying the Jesus Prayer (Lord Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner), changing the words to Lord Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on all the departed faithful…and if I know one or two of the people buried (or their families) I pray for the repose of their souls.

Be at peace!
 
Where I am, we are doing two solemn latin sung high masses, one on each day, and also doing two OF Masses, as per normally scheduled, but the second one is at the Cemetery
 
Ok but there is no official ceremony?
 
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jesusmademe said:
How do you visit a grave site? What to do?
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I visit cemeteries often. Some of the older churches have the cemetery right outside the church door so you have to walk through it to get to Mass.

If I don’t know anyone there, I’ll simply pray for all the people there, and sometimes walk around and look at the grave markers. Some of them are pretty, or interesting from a history perspective.

If I do know someone there, like relatives, a celebrity, or a priest, I will go and say some prayers specifically by that grave and ask them to pray for me. If it was a very close person to me like my parents, husband, or a close friend, I will sit and think about them and talk to them a while. Cemeteries I visit are usually very well kept so I don’t really need to clean up the graves.

You can do whatever you want when visiting a grave as long as you’re quiet and reverent. There is no particular specified way to visit a grave.
 
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