Today is All Saints day, known by many as the hangover after Halloween. But what is All Saints Day? Well, I'm glad you asked...
Around the turn of the 7th century, pirates and grave robbers made it dangerous to venture outside of the walls of Rome to visit the tombs of the martyrs and other beloved deceased, and in fact the relics themselves were in danger from looters. So the decision was made to bring the relics of the martyrs and other saints into the city. They were deposited in special places - like the church of St. Mary of the Angels (formerly the baths of Diocletian - the emperor behind the Great Persecution), the Holy Stairs, the church of Santa Prassede, and the church of St. Mary at the Martyrs - also known as the Pantheon. In the case of important and iconic Roman temples and other buildings that became churches, this demonstrated the triumph of Christianity over paganism. The Pantheon was consecrated as a church - with 28 wagonloads of human remains from the catacombs under its altar - in the year 609 AD. And that was the beginning of a feast day to celebrate all the anonymous martyrs and other saints who didn't have their own feast day on the calendar. It was originally in May, but in the 8th century it was moved to Nov. 1. All Souls Day was added later as a way to remember our beloved dead who may not actually be saints. So now we have All Saints Day to include all the anonymous saints, and All Souls Day (tomorrow) to include all the souls in Purgatory.
As you probably know, Halloween is "all hallow's eve" - All Saints Eve - the night before All Saints Day - but not in the sense of a vigil, more in the sense of the feast before the fast. Halloween is to All Saints Day and All Souls Day what Mardi Gras/Carnivale is to Ash Wednesday and Lent. The point is that Halloween was meant to be a celebration of the victory over evil and death. 1 Corinthians 15:55 says: Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting? And to that end, the idea of mocking death or evil personified led to caricature costumes of the devil, demons, and (I would assume) persecuting emperors like Nero, Domitian, and Diocletian. So people would have costume parties in their homes, celebrating the fact that Satan loses in the end, and of course with the assumption that they would all see each other in church the next day. And in the spirit of St. Francis, skulls and bones represent a reminder of our mortality, and the urgency of getting right with God because we never know when our day will come.
In contemporary culture, too often people cross a line from mocking evil into glorifying it and obsessing over it. I think we need a better discernment to avoid a fascination with evil that occupies people's minds to much that there's not enough room left for God. We all know those people for whom Halloween is the most important holiday of the year. I think part of the reason for that is that people see it as a secular holiday (or worse, a neo-pagan holiday), and think of it as a chance to party without any spiritual/Christian, or even family, expectations attached to it. But it was always meant to be the feast before the fast, the joyful celebration before the more serious celebration. Disconnected from All Saints and All Souls, it gets robbed of its real meaning. So don't believe anyone who tells you that Halloween has pagan origins - it has Christian origins, and it has only become pagan in modern times when secular people strip it of its original meaning.
Here's a short (about a minute) video I took going around the Holy Column in the church of Santa Prassede. This is the column that Jesus was tied to when he was scourged by Pontius Pilate. They don't always have the barrier down, so you usually don't get to see it from all the way around. I wanted to get video of the whole thing all the way around because I ran across a note in an ancient document that said that those who made a pilgrimage (at that time to the Holy Land, since it was still in Jerusalem) could visit the Holy Column, and could see marks left from the hands of Jesus where he gripped it as he was being whipped. I assume that this is pious legend, but I figured since the column has that dark & light marble, maybe there's a place where the dark parts look like hands. I did not see it, but if you do, let me know!
I mentioned in The Journey that I wrote a song based on Isaiah 2, which is one of my favorite OT passages:
In days to come, the mountain of the Lord’s house
shall be established as the highest mountain, and raised above the hills.
All nations shall stream toward it. Many peoples shall come and say:
“Come, let us go up to the Lord’s mountain, to the house of the God of Jacob, That he may instruct us in his ways, and we may walk in his paths.” For from Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
He shall judge between the nations, and set terms for many peoples.
They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; One nation shall not raise the sword against another, nor shall they train for war again. House of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord!
I hope you like the song!
Here is our next set of texts - as we get into John chapter 6, we first encounter Jesus feeding the multitudes - in this case 5,000 families!
Now, as you know, there is also an account o Jesus feeding 4,000, and so you may also know that some scholars might speculate that these are just different versions of the same story that circulated and were handed down orally, until they were written down. Even the fact that both stories occur in the same gospel would not stop that kind of speculation. So I thought the first question I would have to ask was whether the Church fathers thought this was one event or two - BUT (and you see where this is going) I forgot that Jesus himself makes reference to two separate events (in Matthew 16 and in Mark 8) so there is no question for the Church fathers - these are two separate events. So it seems that Jesus performed this sign (miracle) of the feeding of the multitudes on two occasions. It's not just one event told two different ways, and it's also ...
My voice was still recovering from a bad cold, so not sounding my best, but this was a great conversation about pilgrimage, for the Jubilee year - more of this coming in other interviews! (FYI, I think I was the third of three guests that day, so you will have to fast forward to find me)
It seems that one way or another we need to talk about different kinds, or different levels of heresy. What I have been calling heresy vs. heterodoxy, others call heresy on fundamental doctrines vs. heresy on less fundamental doctrines. In other words, Heresy with a capital H (over fundamental doctrines like the Trinity and christology) are the kinds of heresies that move one outside the boundaries of what Christianity is, and that's because the very definition of Christianity is defined according to these fundamental doctrines. To refuse to sign the Creed at the Council of Nicaea in 325, or the Council of Constantinople in 381 - and indeed to reject any of the contents of the Creed today - means that a person is NOT a Christian.
So are the non-chalcedonians, such as the miaphysites (including St. Gregory of Narek, and today's Coptic Christians) - are they heretics? Well, like it is with a lot of things, that depends on your definition of heresy. If you include in your definition of ...
