Today, November 1st, we celebrate the Feast of All Saints. That’s what Halloween was about last night: All Hallow’s Eve, or the night before All Saints Day. Tomorrow is the Feast of All Souls, when we celebrate and pray for all faithful souls, even and especially the ones still doing penance in Purgatory.
We celebrate these feasts as the year begins to die. In the northern temperate zones, it is autumn. The days have become short and crisp and fallen leaves crunch beneath our feet. Winter comes on apace and preparations for cold weather still obligate us even in the most modern of cities.
It is a fitting time to turn our attention to death and dying and to the dead. As long as we keep Easter firmly in mind.
Easter? Why would we be thinking about Easter now? Could there be any greater contrast between Easter – the blooming buds of spring, baskets and bunnies – and the drear season we are in now?
Well, of course there's the candy connection. But I am thinking of something more profound. As in deep. As in the underworld.
You see in those hours between Christ's Good Friday death and His glorious Sunday morning Resurrection, Catholic Tradition and Scripture tell us that Jesus descended into hell – into the abode of the dead. He went there to release all the faithful who had died since Adam, to make known to them the kingdom of God and to announce to them that He was about to open the gates of heaven and that they were soon going to join Him there. In older versions of the English language this was called the "harrowing of hell" and in the Middle Ages it was a popular subject for artistic representation and dramatic works, and rightly so. You think Jesus created a stir in first-century Palestine? Trust me, that was nothing compared to the stir He created among the righteous dead.
His death – and Resurrection and Ascension – would change the meaning of human death for all time.
The time period that runs from All Hallow's Eve to All Soul's Day then, can only be understood in the light of the time between Jesus' death and Resurrection. It is the human autumn mirror that reflects the divine spring glory of Easter. It begins with a mock "harrowing of hell" as Christian children make fun of the demons to show how complete a victory our Lord has won; has its high point today with the Feast of All Saints (a Holy Day of Obligation); and culminates tomorrow with the Feast of All Souls, when we pray for Christ's triumph over hell to bring every human soul to victory.
As Saint Cyprian urged us about seventeen-and-a-half centuries ago, "Let us remember one another in concord and unanimity. Let us on both sides always pray for one another. Let us relieve burdens and afflictions by mutual love, that if one of us, by the swiftness of divine condescension, shall go hence the first, our love may continue in the presence of the Lord, and our prayers for our brethren and sisters not cease in the presence of the Father's mercy."
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