We’re about to embark on an annual event that calls for unique participation: three days in which Christians honor their departed as a group. This period also recognizes our different existential states (the living and the dead), bringing us together to bridge the separation. English-speaking Catholics and Anglicans often call the period Hallowtide or Allhallowtide [an inclusive sacred season] begun on Hallow Eve (now Halloween), followed by All Saints’ Day (excluded by some Protestants), and finally All Souls’ Day (a day for most of us widely called the Day of the Dead). Thanks to the Church, these events now always fall on October 31 through November 2.

There’s a lot of debate about the origin of these dates. Early in Church history, a generic All Saints’ feast day was set in May until, in the 8th c., Pope Gregory III moved it to November 1—by some authorities simply because the harvest could provide food and drink for the consecration of a new Vatican chapel to all saints. More about the harvest to come.

Others believe the Church adopted the Celtic view that the seasonal shift to winter momentarily dissolves the mortal threshold, permitting the dead to roam among the living and demand tribute (or wreak havoc).

We still relish the creepy thrills of such possibilities (and the treats that deflect tricks). But we’ve also long recognized the positive dimensions of the encounter. What better occasion to acknowledge the lives and examples (good and bad) of those before us, and our own related community values (respectful burial, memory, gratitude)? This communion with the departed also makes us mindful of our place in time, within the multitudes of fellow pilgrims before and yet to come.

St. Stephen’s ground, Laurel Hill Cemetery

There’s a popular form of communion between the living and the dead on these days: a pilgrimage to the cemetery, that zone widely called, in the 18th and 19th centuries, the “threshold between two worlds.” Roman Catholic priests still lead processions through some Catholic cemeteries (think New Orleans!); otherwise, many go, singly or in groups, to honor, clean up overgrown tombs, socialize or even hold programs among the departed. Philadelphia’s Laurel Hill Cemetery, for example, offers evening concerts with related themes.

At Laurel Hill we can visit St. Stephen’s later departed (beginning 1866) in the church’s ground by a busy city thoroughfare. For more on the history of these burials, see our Furness Burial Cloister page. I’ve always found being there a movingly intimate encounter, a communion with fellow pilgrims as diverse and human as we are.

The role of the harvest I mentioned above raises a less familiar facet of this period that means more to me in these times of uncertainty and turmoil. Allhallowtide’s celebration at harvesttime also celebrates the gathering of life-giving nourishment to be shared—for some including the departed. Certain Latino and Gaelic communities make special food for the departed or simply to produce a feast in their honor.

Adding to the traditional Christian almsgiving on All Souls’ Day, the harvest enables feeding many, familiar and new, local and transient, secure and needy.

Especially with such provident bounty offered so widely, these special days of human communion across barriers encourage us to be open, generous, grateful, and mindful of life’s many dimensions.

— Suzanne Glover Lindsay, St. Stephen’s historian and curator

Communing with the Dead AND the Living: Allhallowtide (Halloween)

Navigation

Contact Us