All Souls Day

This year, the organisers decided to pay tribute to all the victims of the Easter Sunday tragedy. Around 3000 ribbons with the inscription “2104-2019” on one side and “Never Forget” on the other

The all souls day is a day Christians around the world remember the dead. It is also a beginning of a month where they remember their departed loved ones. However, for the Christians in Sri Lanka, particularly the Catholics, there was a special remembrance held for the victims of the Easter Sunday attacks. Accordingly those who died in the churches and in hotels were remembered on November 2 2019.

The annual All Souls Day mass organised by A.F.

Raymond Ltd. was held on 2nd November 2019. This year, the organisers decided to pay tribute to all the victims of the Easter Sunday tragedy. Around 3000 ribbons with the inscription “21-04-2019” on one side and “Never Forget” on the other.

These were distributed among the congregations of the masses held in Borella, Jawatte, Kotte, Mount Lavinia, and Madampitiya cemeteries and some were given to St. Sebastians church, Katuwapitiya which was one of the locations where the bombings took place.

The main feature of this year is the altar used for the mass at Borella. To remember the 259 victims of the Easter Sunday tragedy they draped a white cloth at the front of the altar with 259 white flowers of varying sizes embedded on to it.

The flowers symbolise all the victims, regardless of age, nationality, caste and creed. This cloth was fixed to the top-right side of the altar by a statue of an angel symbolising the souls of the 259 victims being carried up into heaven by an angel (according to Christian beliefs), while the rest of the cloth drapes down and along the front of the altar. Gold stickers with the date “21-042019” and the phrase “in memoriam” were pasted on the front of the altar.