Dear Friends,
A neighbor recently set out on the landing the cheerful pumpkin
pictured above. The pumpkin glows in the darkness, shiny with some interior
beauty. It's loveliness conveys itself to the viewer, offering memories of
Halloweens gone by and the tenuous contemporary cultural connection of Halloween to the liturgical
life of our church. Halloween stands as first in the trilogy "All Saints’ Eve/All
Saints Day/the Day of the Dead.” Let’s wander
over these three days together in this blog.
Porches that welcome children who go tricks or treating
often have a pumpkin prominently displayed, a funny, odd, sometimes scary face
carved onto its bumpy surface. It’s a new interpretation for children when adults tell them that “Being a Christian is
like being a pumpkin. God picks you from the patch, brings you in, and washes
all of the dirt off of you. God opens you up and scoops out all the yucky stuff
including the seeds of doubt, hate, greed etc. Then God carves you a new smiling
face and puts his light inside you to shine for all the work to see.”
Ursula K. LeGuin, who died in 2018, wrote this in the last
of her books of poetry, So Far So Good;
All Saints All Souls
This is the day when the saints all go
silently to church in France
And
over the mountains of Mexico
the bare bones dance.
Ghosts rise up from graveyard sleep
to follow the southward fleeting sun.
It is the doomsday of the leaf
and the feast day of the skeleton.
Personalize
All Saints’ Day by making your own 10 saints to honor in the coming year:
People whom you have known for many
years, or holy people you have only recently heard of. How will you
recognize them? Here are some characteristics of Saints:
- They live common lives and do common things with uncommon generosity
- Practice some restraint and courage
- Take God more seriously and themselves less so
- Care for others and treat them with dignity
- Take hope by the hand and never let go.
Your ten
saints acknowledged by the Church for their holiness (All Saints Day) or the
ones whose truth you have known in your
lifetime (All Saints Day 2, commonly known as All Souls Day) will be your
friends this year in a new and hopefully
lasting way...
Celebrate
these three days with all to whom we belong in the communion of saints.
-Sister Joan Sobala
