Issue 8.5 - Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan Australia

All Saints Day
The Feast of All Saints is a sacred day of the Church
worshiping all saints, recognized and unidentified.
While people have acquaintance of many saints, and
they tribute them on exact days, there are many
unidentified or unsung saints, who may have been
forgotten, or never been particularly honoured. On
All Saints Day, people rejoice these saints of the
Lord, and ask for their prayers and arbitrations. The
whole notion of All Saints Day is tied in with the
thought of the Communion of Saints. This is the faith
that all of God’s populace, on heaven, earth, and in
the condition of purification (called Purgatory in the
West), are associated in a communion. Catholic and
Orthodox Christians consider that the saints of God
are just as living as normal people. People’s
relationship with the saints in heaven is one
grounded in a tight-knit spiritual union.
“People rejoice these
saints of the Lord and
ask for their prayers and
arbitrations”
There are thousands of canonized saints, i.e. those
persons formally recognized by the Church as holy
men and women admirable of imitation. Miracles
have been linked with these people, and their lives
have been fully inspected and found holy by the
Church. They are major illustrations of sanctity,
and influential intercessors before God on people’s
behalf. There are also many supporter saints,
guardians or guardians of different regions and
states of life. Like, St. Vitus is the supporter saint
against oversleeping, and St. Joseph of Cupertino is
the supporter saint of air travellers. It may sound
wild to have a patron saint against oversleeping,
but keep the Church has something significant for
each region of our human lives. All of these saints
are renowned all throughout the year.
History
All Saints Day is when the Church honours all
saints, famous and strange. The eve of All Saints is
recognized as All Hallows Eve, or Halloween. All
14 | Bhavan Australia | Nov 2010
Saints Day falls on November 1. Christians have
been adoring their saints and martyrs from the time
when the second century AD. The Martyrdom of
Polycarp, almost certainly written near the middle
of the second century, confirm to this reality.
At first the date book of saints and martyrs wideranging
from site to site, and many times local
churches honoured neighbouring saints. On the
other hand, steadily feast days turn into more
widespread. The first indication to a common
banquet celebrating all saints occurs in St. Ephrem
the Syrian (d. AD 373). St. John Chrysostom (d. AD
407) allocates a day to the feast, the first Sunday
after Pentecost, where in the Eastern Churches the
feast is notable to this day. In the West, this date
was perhaps originally used, and then the banquet
was moved to May 13th. The existing ceremony
(November 1) possibly commenced from the time
of Pope Gregory III (d. AD 741), and was likely first
implemented on November 1st in Germany.
Celebrations
The vigil of the Feast (the eve) has matured up as a
celebration in itself, All Hallows Eve, or Halloween.
While a lot of people consider Halloween pagan (and
in many occurrence the celebrations are for many), as
far as the Church is concerned the date is just the eve
of the feast of All Saints. Many traditions of Halloween
imitate the Christian faith that on the feast’s vigils
people ridicule evil, because as Christians, it has no
genuine power over them. Nevertheless, for a number
of people Halloween is used for vice motives, in
which many Christians experiment innocently. There
is a proper association between Christians and
Halloween. A variety of traditions have developed
associated to Halloween. In the Middle Ages, poor
people in the society requested for “soul cakes,” and
ahead receiving these doughnuts, they would agree to
plead for dead. The tradition of masks and outfits
developed to mock evil and maybe perplex the evil
spirits by dressing as one of their own. The day after
All Saints day is called All Soul’s Day, a day to
memorize and offer prayers up on behalf of all of the
truthful departed. In many civilizations it seems the
two days share many customs.
Source: www.altiusdirectory.com