ALL SAINT'S DAY

"All Saints' Day was formally started by Pope Boniface IV, who consecrated the Parthenon at Rome to the Virgin Mary and all the Martyrs on May 13 in 609 AD. Boniface IV also established All Souls' Day, which follows All Saints.
The choice of the day may have been intended to co-opt the pagan holiday "Feast of the Lamures," a day which pagans used to placate the restless spirits of the dead.
The holy day was eventually established on November 1 by Pope Gregory III in the mid-eighth century as a day dedicated to the saints and their relics."  -Catholic Online

The day following Halloween is the Catholic feast of All Saint's Day. As a parochial school child, this meant the day after gorging myself silly on candy, I got the day off school. It did come with a price: it was a holy day of obligation, meaning going to mass was a requirement. In Catholicism, a day of fun is always followed by a day of repentance. 

The saints are big in Catholicism. We used to trade holy cards with their images like normal kids our age were trading baseball cards. The nuns and priests expounded endlessly on the moral lives of these religiously committed women and men as an example of pure Christian virtue. They glorified how they were beaten, raped, and horrifically persecuted for their beliefs. Being a martyr was a sure one way ticket to heaven. Who wouldn't want to be one?

Even though I am of a Buddhist persuasion, I have statues of my favorite saints in strategic places in my home. Why? Because they are examples of applying spiritual practices to daily life-something we don't see much of anymore. Another compelling reason is that the Catholics gave equal credit to its women saints. They were my role models. Joan of Arc, St. Clare, St. Francis, St. Therese are some of my favorites. They were not some spiritually enlightened geniuses but real people who courageously followed a visceral doctrine they felt would make the world a better place. 

Many of them were intuitively and psychically gifted. I have always found it amusing that if one received innate knowledge the Catholic Church approved of, you were a saint. If they didn't, you were demonic. A number of saints were initially vilified and victimized for having the hubris to say they were receiving communiques from God, Jesus, and the Virgin Mary. Today you'd be put on anti-psychotic drugs. 

Today we have few living saints. Fame, fortune, and beauty is what we are reinforced to worship. That is what makes this day a day to remember; we all carry a saintly side of us that can make the world a better place.

Happy All Saints Day!