Happy All Hallow's Eve!

All Hallow's Eve, or Hallowe'en, hasn't been a liturgical feast day on the Church calendar since 1955, but it is a good time to prepare for the two feast days that follow, All Saints Day on November 1st and All Souls Day on November 2.

All Saint's Day is the day the Church remembers and honors the Saints in Heaven. All Soul's Day, also known as the Day Of The Dead, is the day that we remember all the deceased. As Catholics, we celebrate the "communion of saints."

The communion of saints is the spiritual solidarity which binds together the faithful on earth, the souls in purgatory, and the saints in heaven in the organic unity of the same mystical body under Christ its head, and in a constant interchange of supernatural offices. From New Advent

On Hallowe'en, as we ponder the lives and deaths of the Saints and others who have gone before us, it is also appropriate to think about our own deaths and how we might imitate the Saints in our journey to Heaven.

Father,
All-Powerful and Ever-Living God,
Today we rejoice
in the holy men and women
of every time and place.
May their prayers
bring us your forgiveness and love.
We ask this through Christ our Lord.
Amen.
From the Liturgy of the Hours