All Saints’ Service at COS- This Sunday, 6 PM
The commercial calendar tells us that October 31 is Halloween. While we might question the spiritual implications of dressing like ghouls, some of us may be unaware of the celebration’s spiritual roots.
The early Church celebrated All Saints’ Day to commemorate martyrs of the faith and soon came to include non-martyred saints, as well. This was celebrated on November 1. All Souls’ Day was added on November 2 to honor all who had died, and often included prayer for the dead as in Mexico’s Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead). All Hallows’ Eve (meaning “All Saints’ Evening”) is the vigil the evening before these saint days. While it may have originally been an evening prayer service like Christmas Eve, it came to include macabre costumes and merry pranks. Renamed Halloween, this secular festival now dwarfs the religious observance that gave it birth.
At COS we take the occasion of All Saints’ Day to honor the “cloud of witnesses”—those faithful servants of Christ who have gone before us. This Sunday evening, at 6pm we will have an evening service of testimonies in which a few people give a brief testimony about a person—dead or living—who has modeled the Christian life for them. You are encouraged to attend!