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.