For Roman Catholic and Orthodox faiths, All Saints Day honors exemplary Christians who achieved sainthood. This includes unknown Christians and Martyrs who have attained beatific vision (a form of direct knowledge and communication with God).
For many Christian denominations, all Saints Day is a remembrance of departed Christian people of any time and place. Many churches remember the persons in their congregations that have died during the previous year. Churches also celebrate Holy Communion in honor of the Christians who lived before them.
In the early church, each martyr was celebrated on the anniversary on his or her death. Over time, churches began combining these observances and ultimately ended up with one day to honor all of them.
The celebration of All Saints Day began in the 7th Century in Rome when Pope Boniface IV dedicated the Pantheon.
All Saints Day is an observation held by both Protestant and Roman Catholic churches on November 1. A similar holy day, called the Sunday of All Saints, occurs in the Orthodox Church on the first Sunday after the Feast of Holy Pentecost.
In the Lutheran and some other Protestant churches, All Saints Day is celebrated with Reformation Day, which marks the beginning of the Protestant movement to reform the Roman Catholic Church. The Protestants eventually split from Catholicism.
Roman Catholics also celebrate All Soul's day, which occurs the day after All Saints. It commemorates those who have died that haven't yet reached heaven, referring to the Roman Catholic belief in purgatory. Purgatory is a state after death in which those destined for heaven are purified.
It is popular for Mexican Christians to celebrate All Saints Day by creating shrines in their homes featuring the favorite things of their loved ones. Families often go to the cemetery and hold picnics near the graves of loved ones to celebrate their lives.
Go to church and light a candle for your departed loved ones. This is common for All Saints Day as a way to commemorate relatives and loved ones who have died during the previous year.
Some families meet on All Saints Day after church to repair and spruce up the graves of their loved ones. Tend to your family's last resting place.
All Saints Day also commemorates saints that are unknown to us. Honor a deceased person that may have contributed positively to society or your life.
www.newadvent.org: Catholic Encyclopedia Entry on All Saints' Day
Rev David Warner column: All Saints' Day questmedianetwork.co.uk
PROPER TO THE DIOCESES OF CANADA
APPROVED BY THE CONGREGATION FOR DIVINE WORSHIP AND THE DISCIPLINE OF THE SACRAMENTS
JANUARY 27, 2016
PROT. N. 32/16
7. St. André Bessette, Religious Memorial
8. St. Raymond de Penyafort, Priest1
12. St. Marguerite Bourgeoys, Virgin Memorial
19. ST. JOSEPH, HUSBAND OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY, PRINCIPAL PATRON OF CANADA Solemnity
17. St. Kateri Tekakwitha, Virgin Memorial
18. Bl. Marie-Anne Blondin, Virgin
26. Our Lady of Good Counsel
30. St. Marie de l’Incarnation, Religious Memorial
1. St. Pius V, Pope
4. Bl. Marie-Léonie Paradis, Virgin
6. St. François de Laval, Bishop Memorial
8. Bl. Catherine de Saint-Augustin, Virgin
21. St. Eugène de Mazenod, Bishop
24. Bl. Louis-Zéphirin Moreau, Bishop
27. Bl. Nykyta Budka and Vasyl Velychkowsky, Bishops and Martyrs
1. CANADA DAY
26. ST. ANNE, PATRON OF THE PROVINCE OF QUEBEC, AND ST. JOACHIM, PARENTS OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY Feast
5. Bl. Frédéric Janssoone, Priest
2. Bl. André Grasset, Priest and Martyr
4. Bl. Dina Bélanger, Virgin
24. Bl. Émilie Tavernier-Gamelin, Religious
25. Sts. Cosmas and Damian, Martyrs
26. STS. JEAN DE BREBEUF, ISAAC JOGUES, PRIESTS, AND COMPANIONS, MARTYRS, SECONDARY PATRONS OF CANADA Feast
First Monday Labour Day
6. Bl. Marie-Rose Durocher, Virgin
16. St. Marguerite d’Youville, Religious Memorial
20. St. Hedwig, Religious
St. Marguerite-Marie Alacoque, Virgin
22. DEDICATION OF CONSECRATED CHURCHES whose date of Consecration is unknown Solemnity Second Monday THANKSGIVING DAY
11. REMEMBRANCE DAY
12. OUR LADY OF GUADALUPE, PATRONESS OF THE AMERICAS Feast
1 When no rank is given for a celebration, it is an optional memorial
All Souls’ Day seeks to honor the dead through prayer and remembrance. According to Catholic belief, when a person dies, their soul goes to one of three places: heaven, hell, or purgatory. All Souls’ Day was proposed in 998 C.E by the abbot of Cluny France, St. Odilo.
St. Odilo wanted a day set aside to honor and remember the departed souls, especially those residing in purgatory. Souls in purgatory are thought to pass on to heaven through faithful prayer.
All Souls' Day is recognized by several denominations of the Catholic Church including Lutheranism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and some sects of Protestantism. All Souls’ Day is observed annually on November 2nd.
Christianity is the largest religion in the world. Over 33% of people in the world identify as Christians. More than 72% of Europeans identify as Christians.
Hope does not disappoint,’ St. Paul tells us. Hope attracts us and gives meaning to life... hope is a gift from God that draws us towards life, towards eternal joy. Hope is an anchor that we have on the other side - Pope Francis, November 2, 2020
To remember the dead, many cultures prepare meals for the souls of the dead, light candles or leave flowers on family graves and some pour holy water or milk over tombstones.
Visit your loved ones who have passed on. Light a candle in their honor.
Prepare a meal in memory of a deceased family member. In many countries, it is customary to prepare this meal and it is believed that the dead return to consume the food.
Watch a movie about All Souls’ Day or Christianity. Some of our favourites are: All Soul’s Day (2005), Passion of the Christ (2004), and Raising the Undead (2006).
www.catholic.org: All Souls' Day
encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com: All Souls' Day
Prayer for the Evening on All Souls day catholicsay.com
Pope Francis prays for deceased popes on All Souls’ Day cbcpnews.net
All Saints' Day and All Souls in Krakow - Nov 1, 2 evernote.com
Pope Francis celebrates All Souls’ Day Mass at military cemetery in Rome cbcpnews.net
https://www.history.com/topics/halloween/history-of-halloween
Halloween is a holiday celebrated each year on October 31, and Halloween 2022 will occur on Monday, October 31. The tradition originated with the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, when people would light bonfires and wear costumes to ward off ghosts. In the eighth century, Pope Gregory III designated November 1 as a time to honor all saints. Soon, All Saints Day incorporated some of the traditions of Samhain. The evening before was known as All Hallows Eve, and later Halloween. Over time, Halloween evolved into a day of activities like trick-or-treating, carving jack-o-lanterns, festive gatherings, donning costumes and eating treats.
Halloween’s origins date back to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain (pronounced sow-in). The Celts, who lived 2,000 years ago, mostly in the area that is now Ireland, the United Kingdom and northern France, celebrated their new year on November 1.
This day marked the end of summer and the harvest and the beginning of the dark, cold winter, a time of year that was often associated with human death. Celts believed that on the night before the new year, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred. On the night of October 31 they celebrated Samhain, when it was believed that the ghosts of the dead returned to earth.
In addition to causing trouble and damaging crops, Celts thought that the presence of the otherworldly spirits made it easier for the Druids, or Celtic priests, to make predictions about the future. For a people entirely dependent on the volatile natural world, these prophecies were an important source of comfort during the long, dark winter.
To commemorate the event, Druids built huge sacred bonfires, where the people gathered to burn crops and animals as sacrifices to the Celtic deities. During the celebration, the Celts wore costumes, typically consisting of animal heads and skins, and attempted to tell each other’s fortunes.
When the celebration was over, they re-lit their hearth fires, which they had extinguished earlier that evening, from the sacred bonfire to help protect them during the coming winter.
Did you know? One quarter of all the candy sold annually in the U.S. is purchased for Halloween.
By 43 A.D., the Roman Empire had conquered the majority of Celtic territory. In the course of the 400 years that they ruled the Celtic lands, two festivals of Roman origin were combined with the traditional Celtic celebration of Samhain.
The first was Feralia, a day in late October when the Romans traditionally commemorated the passing of the dead. The second was a day to honor Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit and trees. The symbol of Pomona is the apple, and the incorporation of this celebration into Samhain probably explains the tradition of bobbing for apples that is practiced today on Halloween.
On May 13, 609 A.D., Pope Boniface IV dedicated the Pantheon in Rome in honor of all Christian martyrs, and the Catholic feast of All Martyrs Day was established in the Western church. Pope Gregory III later expanded the festival to include all saints as well as all martyrs, and moved the observance from May 13 to November 1.
By the 9th century, the influence of Christianity had spread into Celtic lands, where it gradually blended with and supplanted older Celtic rites. In 1000 A.D., the church made November 2 All Souls’ Day, a day to honor the dead. It’s widely believed today that the church was attempting to replace the Celtic festival of the dead with a related, church-sanctioned holiday.
All Souls’ Day was celebrated similarly to Samhain, with big bonfires, parades and dressing up in costumes as saints, angels and devils. The All Saints’ Day celebration was also called All-hallows or All-hallowmas (from Middle English Alholowmesse meaning All Saints’ Day) and the night before it, the traditional night of Samhain in the Celtic religion, began to be called All-Hallows Eve and, eventually, Halloween.
How the Early Catholic Church Christianized Halloween
Halloween Comes to America
The celebration of Halloween was extremely limited in colonial New England because of the rigid Protestant belief systems there. Halloween was much more common in Maryland and the southern colonies.
As the beliefs and customs of different European ethnic groups and the American Indians meshed, a distinctly American version of Halloween began to emerge. The first celebrations included “play parties,” which were public events held to celebrate the harvest. Neighbors would share stories of the dead, tell each other’s fortunes, dance and sing.
Colonial Halloween festivities also featured the telling of ghost stories and mischief-making of all kinds. By the middle of the 19th century, annual autumn festivities were common, but Halloween was not yet celebrated everywhere in the country.
In the second half of the 19th century, America was flooded with new immigrants. These new immigrants, especially the millions of Irish fleeing the Irish Potato Famine, helped to popularize the celebration of Halloween nationally.
Borrowing from European traditions, Americans began to dress up in costumes and go house to house asking for food or money, a practice that eventually became today’s “trick-or-treat” tradition. Young women believed that on Halloween they could divine the name or appearance of their future husband by doing tricks with yarn, apple parings or mirrors.
In the late 1800s, there was a move in America to mold Halloween into a holiday more about community and neighborly get-togethers than about ghosts, pranks and witchcraft. At the turn of the century, Halloween parties for both children and adults became the most common way to celebrate the day. Parties focused on games, foods of the season and festive costumes.