Waching daily Oct 27 2018

Hello brothers and sisters in Christ.

We're very close to Halloween festivities (or as we should say, festivities related to All Saints' day ). We're approaching All Saints' Day (November 1st) and All Souls' Day (November 2nd).

I've made a video in the past about the origins of Halloween and how a Christian must celebrate it; I also made a video on the origins of All Souls' Day (a.k.a. the Day of the Faithful Departed).

This year I decided to do a video about November 1st, All Saints' Day.

Many don't know that All Saints' Day wasn't on November 1st before. All Saints' Day was formally started by Pope Boniface IV, who consecrated the Pantheon at Rome.

For those who doesn't know what's the Pantheon: it's a wonderful site in Rome that you should go visit, there's always tons of tourists. I had the opportunity this year to go there.

The Pantheon is a former pagan temple, inside people worshipped many gods, hence the name Pantheon (The name comes from the Greek: 'Pan' means 'all', and 'Theos' means 'gods').

So the Pantheon was a temple dedicated to all pagan gods. This structure is still erected to this day and now is a Catholic church. We, Catholics, "baptized", "christianised", converted that place into a place of worship of the True God.

This means that every Sunday there's the celebration of Holy Mass. Well, back to what I was saying, All Saints' Day was formally started by Pope Boniface IV, who consecrated the Pantheon at Rome to the Virgin Mary and all the Martyrs on May 13, AD 609.

Yup, AD 609! Right at the beginning of the 7th century. As you can see, the celebration of All Saints is very ancient.

The holy day was eventually established on November 1st by Pope Gregory III in the mid-eighth century as a day dedicated to the saints and their relics (due to a dedication of a chapel/oratory in the Vatican).

The May 13 celebration was subsequently abandoned.

To conclude the video, I want to make here a little side note: some Catholics think that All Saints' Day is about St. Francis of Assisi, St. John Paul II, St. Padre Pio, etc.

Not necessarily. The Catholic practice celebrates all those who have entered heaven, including saints who are recognized by the Church and those who are not.

There's thousands or even millions of saints in Heaven. When we're speak about All Saints' Day, we're talking about the souls of those who are enjoying the eternal bliss of Heaven right now.

It's a day that reminds us of our goal: to merit Heaven, to fight against evil so we can be face-to-face with the Father.

On November 1st we also appreciate the saints' intercessions to God on behalf of us. This day is a day to be joyful; this day is an opportunity to testify about Jesus, an opportunity to catechize our children.

Halloween day is also a day for that purpose. The original Halloween wasn't about ghosts, vampires, the occult, gory stuff. All Hallows' Eve is the vigil feast of All Saints' (All Hallows').

I'll leave in the description box below the links to my Halloween and All Souls' Day videos so that you can live out the Allhallowtide in a better way. This triduum is very important, it points us to Christ.

I hope this video fosters a spiritual boost in your spiritual life so you can see things and experience things on November 1st differently this year. See you next week, God willing.