November
1Solemnity of All Saints:
The Solemnity of All
Saints, also sometimes known as "All Hallows," or "Hallowmas," is
a feast celebrated in honour of all the
saints
and
martyrs,
known or unknown. The
Roman Catholic
holiday (Festum omnium sanctorum) falls on
November 1,
followed by
All Souls Day
on
November 2
and is a festival of the first rank, with a vigil and an octave.
The eve of the Solemnity, the vigil, is popularly celebrated
as Hallowe'en, Halloween or Hallow's Eve
The
Eastern Orthodox
Church's All Saints is the first Sunday after
Pentecost
and as such punctuates the close of the
Easter
season.
In Christianity, the tree
feasts of the After-Death:
1- Halloween, All Hallow's Eve, on
Oct.31... the Vigil of the Solemnity of All Saints and the feast of Death and
Hell
2- All Saints, on Nov.1... the
Solemnity of All Saints in Heaven
3- All Souls, on Nov.2...
the special feast to pray for those in Purgatory .
This Solemnity is instituted to
honor all the saints, known and unknown.
There are over 4,000 persons known to be in Heaven, but there
are millions and millions od persons in Heaven, your spouse or mother or
father or child nit canonized by the Church but who are in Paradise with
the the good thief of Calvary in Luke 23:43. and this the great feast we
celebrate to honor your relatives in Heaven or your fruends or even your
enemies who are in Heaven.
This is how the Bible puts it:
“After
this I had a vision of a great multitude, which no one could count, from
every nation, race, people, and tongue. They stood before the throne and
before the Lamb, wearing white robes and holding palm branches in their
hands.... [One of the elders] said to me, ‘These are the ones who have
survived the time of great distress; they have washed their robes and made
them white in the blood of the Lamb’” (Revelation 7:9,14).
On May 13, 610 Pope Boniface IV consecrated the Pantheon at Rome to the Blessed Virgin and all the martyrs, and the feast of the dedicatio Sanctae Mariae ad Martyres has been celebrated at Rome ever since. The chosen day, May 13, was a pagan observation of great antiquity, the culmination of three days of the Feast of the Lemures, in which were propitiated the malevolent and restless spirits of all the dead. The medieval liturgiologists based the idea that this Lemuria festival was the origin of that of All Saints on identical dates and on the similar theme of all the dead.
This connection has now been abandoned by Roman Catholics. Instead, the feast of All Saints is now traced to the foundation by Pope Gregory III (731-741) of an oratory in St Peter's for the relics "of the holy apostles and of all saints, martyrs and confessors, of all the just made perfect who are at rest throughout the world", with the day moved to November 1.
The festival was retained after the
Reformation
in the
calendar
of the
Church of
England and in that of many of the
Lutheran
churches. In the latter, in spite of attempts at revival, it has fallen
into disuse. In the Lutheran churches, such as the
Church of
Sweden, it assumes a role of general commemoration of
the dead (similar to the All Souls commemoration in the Eastern
Orthodox Church that takes place two Saturdays before the beginning of
Lent).
In the
Swedish
calendar observance takes place on the first Saturday
of
November.![[Naomi and Ruth]](saintr0k.gif "95kb gif illustration of Naomi and Ruth, date unknown, artist unknown; taken from the biblepicturegallery.com free pictures section; please do not write to ask about the image")
Rachel
Old Testament Jewish Matriarch. Wife of the Patriach Jacob. She
spent a lengthy marriage in shame over her sterility, considered a sign
of God's disfavor. However, late in life she had two sons, Joseph, he of
the many-coloured coat, and Benjamin.
Ruth
Old Testament matriarch, and the subject of the canonical Old
Testament Book of Ruth. Born to a pagan family, she married a Jewish
man.
Widowed, she was facing starvation when her mother-in-law, Naomi,
urged her to return to her own people. But Ruth declared that the people
of God were now her people, their God her God, and she returned to
Israel. She married Boaz, and became a mother. Her great-grandson was
King
David, and further down the family tree was Jesus.