These are Holy Days

Today is the death anniversary of quite a few Christians – King Alfred the Great, Eadfrid, Quadregesimus, Rustigus – that I’d never heard of until I began reading about October 26th . So many people, so many stories, so many lovers of Jesus that are now with him. Catholics choose as memorial feasts the date of the person’s death because that’s the finishing of their fight; the end of their race (II Timothy 4:7); the day they beheld God’s glory (John 1:14). I got lost in my children’s book of saints and read all the way through the end of the year, from martyrs across time and nations to farmers who spent quiet lives raising their families in faith and love. I read of Christian brothers and sisters from far millenia to just a few years ago. Mother Teresa once said, “Holiness is not the privilege of a few but the duty of all.” We are all called to be saints; all called to be holy; and it is God our loving father who gives us the grace to say yes to him every day.

These beloved souls in heaven are what we celebrate on November 1st, All Saints Day. From the very beginnings of Christianity, people honored the martyrs. By the fourth century, it was a common day; mentioned in a sermon by Ephrem the Syrian in AD 373. By the ninth century, Gregory IV instituted a feast for all the heavenly saints, not just martyrs, on November 1st. The bond of God with his people is love. We love our Lord and we love his children. We are all the Church, those of us here on earth and those of us on the other side: “Exactly as Christian communion among our fellow pilgrims brings us closer to Christ, so our communion with the saints joins us to Christ, from whom as from its fountain and head issues all grace, and the life of the people of God itself (#957).” This is called the communion of saints and it is a precious doctrine.

Just as the eve of Christmas is a wonderful holiday of itself, so the eve of All Saints is a holiday, All Hallow’s Eve (Hallow is an ancient English term for saint) – Halloween. Since the following day finds Catholics worshipping at Mass in celebration of those with Jesus in heaven, the night before is a great time to poke fun of death, which has lost its sting (I Corinthians 15:54-55) and dress up as anyone, since anyone can be a saint. One year, my teenage son dressed up as the grim reaper with a sign taped to his back that read, “Lost My Sting.” My husband the theologian still chuckles at that costume! Last year, one of my younger sons dressed up as a cowboy, declaring that there were certainly cowboys in heaven. There’s no devil worship going on here; quite the opposite. It’s not a harvest festival; that’d be Samhain, the pagan day and it’s not gratefulness for a good summer; that’d be Thanksgiving, which we mark next month. We need not fear the cold winter as a harbinger of death like the ancient Celts. The Church’s liturgical calendar places feasts of hope and life in this season (All Saints and Christmas). It is a time to exult that the last enemy to be destroyed is death (I Corinthians 15:26) for the light of the world has come!

It’s such a stirring time, the hallowed evening and all saint memorial, that I find poetry speaks best.

“Death be not proud, though some have called thee mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so...One short sleep past, we wake eternally and death shall be no more. Death, thou shalt die (From Death be Not Proud by John Donne).”

“I sing a song of the saints of God, patient and brave and true,

Who toiled and fought and lived and died for the Lord they loved and knew.

One was a doctor and one was a queen and one was a shepherdess on the green.

They were all of them saints of God and I mean, God helping, to be one too.

They lived not only in ages past; there are hundreds of thousands still,

The world is bright with joyous saints who love to do Jesus’ will.

For the saints of God are just folk like me, and I mean to be one too (From Saints of God by Lesbia Scott, also illustrated in a lovely children’s book).”

Indeed, Lord, we long to live eternally, and to greet our brother and sister saints in heaven with you someday. These are holy days.