This coming Sunday, November 1st is All Saints Day, a feast of the church honoring all the saints of the Christian Church. Along with Christmas, Easter, Pentecost, Ascension Day, and Epiphany, it is a Principal Feast of the church -- a cause for major celebration.
Lots of people wonder about the Origins of All Saints Day, and it's vigil All Hallow's Eve (held the night before), or as we now call it Halloween! Below I am pasting a bit of helpful historical information from churchyear.net about the development of this festival. But for us today, I think the most important part of All Saints Day is a reminder that the community of the church exists not just across space, but across time as well. When sing the "Holy, Holy, Holy" at Communion, we are "joining our voices with saints and angels and all the company of heaven" -- reminding ourselves that we are part of a much larger reality beyond the one we experience each day.
From churchyear.net, about the Feasts of All Hallow's Eve/All Saints/All Souls:
Christians have been honoring their saints and martyrs since at least the second century AD. Initially the calendars of saints and martyrs varied from location to location, and many times local churches honored local saints. However, gradually feast days became more universal. The first reference to a general feast celebrating all saints occurs in St Ephrem the Syrian (d. AD 373). St. John Chrysostom (d. AD 407) assigned a day to the feast, the first Sunday after Pentecost, where in the Eastern Churches the feast is celebrated to this day. In the West, this date was probably originally used, and then the feast was moved to May 13th. The current observance (November 1) probably originates from the time of Pope Gregory III (d. AD 741), and was likely first observed on November 1st in Germany. This fact makes the connection of the All Saints Feast with the pagan festival Samhain less likely, since Samhain was an Irish pagan feast, rather than German.
The vigil of the Feast (the eve) has grown up in the English speaking countries as a festival in itself, All Hallows Eve, or Halloween. While many consider Halloween pagan (and in many instances the celebrations are for many), as far as the Church is concerned the date is simply the eve of the feast of All Saints. Many customs of Halloween reflect the Christian belief that on the feast's vigils we mock evil, because as Christians, it has no real power over us. However, for some Halloween is used for evil purposes, in which many Christians dabble unknowingly.
Various customs have developed related to Halloween. In the Middle Ages, poor people in the community begged for "soul cakes," and upon receiving these doughnuts, they would agree to pray for departed souls. This is the root of our modern day "trick-or-treat." The custom of masks and costumes developed to mock evil and perhaps confuse the evil spirits by dressing as one of their own. Some Christians visit cemeteries on Halloween, not to practice evil, but to commemorate departed relatives and friends, with picnics and the last flowers of the year. The day after All Saints day is called All Soul's Day, a day to remember and offer prayers up on behalf of all of the faithful departed. In many cultures it seems the two days share many customs.
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