Today we commemorate the great feast of All Saints Day on November 1 as we begin the month of remembrance in the Catholic faith. In the year 609 AD, Pope Boniface IV consecrated the ancient Roman Pantheon to the saints of the Catholic Church, especially to all the martyrs. The Pantheon had been an important pagan Temple in Rome and one of the most important buildings in the ancient world. Pope Boniface IV consecrated this building to the saints on May 13, which became the feast of All Saints. In the 8th century, Pope Gregory III transferred this feast to November 1st; it has been celebrated on that date ever since.
What about the connection between All Saints Day and Halloween, an important celebration in secular America? Like any great feast in the Church, the celebration always begins on the eve or vigil of that feast day, just how we celebrate Christmas Eve the evening before Christmas Day. Halloween, then, is the evening celebration of All Saints Day, which is where we get its name. The name Halloween comes from All Hallows Eve, in which hallows is the Old English term for saints. What we see today in the world with our secular celebration of Halloween is different from the original intent of this holiday, which commonly happens. Churches hosting trunk or treat gathering with their families is a way to tie Halloween back to its religious roots in the Church.
So what does it mean to be a saint? Normally, we probably think of those people of faith who led lives of extraordinary holiness, who have been canonized or beatified by the Church. We can think of a lot of the famous saints we have in the Church, such as St Jude or St Francis of Assisi or Mother Teresa or St Thomas Aquinas. In today's celebration of All Saints Day, we use the word saint in a much broader sense, referring to all baptized Christians who have died and are now with God in glory in eternal life. Tomorrow, on All Souls Day, we will remember those who have died but still need a process of purification before they can come face-to-face with God in eternal life.
Today, our Gospel reading is the Beatitudes from Matthew. As we strive toward holiness, perhaps in an examination of conscience we undertake before going to the sacrament of reconciliation, we usually use the ten commandments as the standard. However, as we hear the Beatitudes today, perhaps we understand how they give us a wonderful guide to living a life of holiness as Christ’s disciples. Perhaps the key to the Beatitudes is being poor in spirit, calling us to humility and openness in the way we receive the kingdom of God in our lives, being open to leading a life of compassion, love, and service to God and to our neighbor. The poor in spirit are open to standing before God with the open hands of a child, to receive what he has to give to us. The poor in spirit realize that their lives are not about power, control, and their own will, but rather following God’s will. God calls us to accept our limitations and our imperfections, to rely on him as the center of our lives. We can think of examples of how we have seen the values of the Beatitudes lived out in the lives of many of the members of the community of saints, such as Mother Teresa humbling herself to be a servant to the poor and the abandoned, even in the midst of her struggles with darkness in her own spiritual life. A saint is that person who is willing to follow the life to which Christ invites him.
Our celebration of All Saints Day invites us to give thanks, for our ancestors, our family members, our loved ones, and our friends who have all gone before us and who have entered eternal life. We look to that day when we will be united with them in God’s eternal kingdom. As we pray for the saints today, may we ask for their prayers on our behalf, that we may live lives of faithfulness and holiness.
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