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October 31, 2008
Saints in Light
Is the Christian Church's response to the creeping and rather sinister conversion of All Saints Eve into some sort of beano for witches, warlocks and some pretty pagan goings on. And before anyone leaps out to defend this as "innocent" just ask yourself exactly what the Pumpkin Heads are all about. The slow and steady degradation of this, once one of the greatest Christian Festivals at which the lives of all the saints on earth and in heaven was celebrated, ask yourself what witches and warlocks have to do with it.
It is a fact that most of this stuff was introduced after the Reformation and was an effort to discredit the medieval celebration and custom of praying to and through the saints. Yet, if you look to the origins of it as a feast you discover that it was a day set aside for the contemplation of the lives of the saints and a clebration of their work among us. Special saints all have their own days, this festival was a celebration of the whole Christian community. Yes, it certainly does fall quite close to the pagan festival of the harvest, but not close enough to be confused with it unless you are seeking to deliberately discredit the Christian celebration of saints. I find it really quite disturbing that there does seem to be a deliberate policy to "paganise" everything Christian and to destroy the Christian foundations of this country.
Unfortunately for the likes of Dawkins et al, the absence of organised religion almost invariably results, as Halloween proves, in people seeking to attach their desire to believe in something, to anything.
So, we in Tewkesbury, in line with our Bishops and the rest of our Diocese, are holding a procession of light and "saints" - ourselves - from the Abbey to the daughter church of Holy Trinity where we will join in a service celebrating the Saints. The procession will be led by incense, cross and acolytes so that it cannot be mistaken for anything but a Christian statement.
May all the saints be with you, may they interceded for you and greet you in heaven at the time of your translation.
Posted by The Gray Monk at October 31, 2008 03:39 PM
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