Hallows Eve, All Saints, All Souls - Rector's Rambling for October 30, 2022

     This weekend the world is celebrating Halloween, and we give thanks to God for the opportunity to celebrate and have fun. 

For those who do not know, Halloween is derivation of the phrase All Hallows Eve.  Hallows is a form of the word for Saint.  It is the Eve of All Saints Day.  The Church celebrates the lives of the saints, those who have gone before us and have had a life of heroic virtue in the faith. 

All Saints Day is November 1st, and we will celebrate that on Tuesday at the 12:15 Holy Communion Service.  It will also be celebrated again on Sunday within the Octave, on November 6.   It is an important enough feast day that it is celebrated twice!

On November 2nd, we also will be celebrating All Souls Day, also known as the Feast of All the Faithful Departed.  On this day, we will remember at the altar all those who are near and dear to us who have died.  On Wednesday, we will have two Requiem Masses.  At 10 AM we will do so in the chapel at Elmwood Cemetery in Detroit.  It is here that the overwhelming majority of our members who died in the first 50 or 60 years of the parish (founded 1858) are buried.  Then at 12:15, we will have a Requiem Mass in our Chapel where another set of parishioners are interred in our columbarium.  Be sure to submit the names of your beloved dead that you would like to have remembered by name at the 12:15 Mass.

By now you have noticed, I hope, that I am away this weekend.  During the pandemic I resumed a former hobby and started rowing again.  This weekend I am in Philadelphia where yesterday I was scheduled to race twice; in a single, and in an eight person boat with a group of men I rowed with in college in the late 1980s.  This morning I will be attending Mass in Philadelphia  where I began my ministry and then will be driving back to Detroit. 

A great thing about being this traditional Anglican parish of the Episcopal Church is that we have continued the tradition of corporate Choral Morning Prayer on the 2nd and 5th Sundays, and because of that, many pray the Daily Office at home, and we can do it here on Sunday when I am away as well.