All Saints

All Saint's Day    November 1

Almighty God, you have knit together your elect in one
communion and fellowship in the mystical body of your Son
Christ our Lord: Give us grace so to follow your blessed saints
in all virtuous and godly living, that we may come to those
ineffable joys that you have prepared for those who truly love
you; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with you and the Holy
Spirit lives and reigns, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.

Enough with spiders and cars and gators, time to duck into a phone booth and change into my holy man costume, eh. This is All Saints’ Day, one of the seven Principal Feasts of the church calendar (BCP 15) along with Easter, Ascension, Pentecost, Trinity, Christmas and Epiphany. Halloween is to All Saints Day as Santa's reindeer are to Bethlehem, the Easter Bunny to the Empty Tomb.

Pagan to Holy.

It’s a celebration, ecclesiastical word is feast, honoring all saints and martyrs of Christian history. For an earthy chat about it, RC Fr. Wm Saunders online at http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/religion/re0199.html

Other than the trick-or-treaters who have no idea what it’s all about, it seems to be mainly a Roman and Anglican observance. Or to have been --

-- although the antithetical tradition of some “free churches” of taking their children to the mountains for a holiday to be above the supposed witchcraft paganism of the season also is a halloween observance whether they realize it or not. What do they do up there anyway? One suspects they turn out the lights and watch Harry Potter movies in the dark.

We could have a Small Group devoted to observing each of the Principal Feasts and other major festivals that are desecrated by ignoring all that is inconvenient.

Profane to Sacred.

TW+