This day is set aside for prayer for the faithful departed (starting an entire month of prayer for the dead). All Masses on All Souls’ Day are offered for the Holy Souls, that they may be purified from sin and so come to enjoy the Beatific Vision in heavenly glory. There are Masses at 6.30am, 8.30am (followed by a blessing of the garden of remembrance), 1.10pm (Latin, Extraordinary Form) and 5.30pm (sung).
[On All Souls’ Day] we commemorate all of the faithful departed, who have “gone before us marked with the sign of faith and … who sleep in Christ” (Eucharistic Prayer I). It is very important that we Christians live a relationship of the truth of the faith with the deceased and that we view death and the afterlife in the light of Revelation. Already the Apostle Paul, writing to the first communities, exhorted the faithful to “not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since”, he wrote, “we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep” (1 Thess. 4: 13-14).
From an Angelus address of Pope Benedict XVI, 2nd November 2008