St. Paul’s Episcopal Church

At St. Paul’s Parish today, Friday, October 31, 2008:

• Women’s AA at 7:30 p.m. (in the Dining Room).

The October issue of St. Paul’s Sword of the Spirit, our monthly newsletter, is available on line, as is the calendar of parish events for October 2008.

Today’s news in the Episcopal Church - Episcopal Life Online.

On the calendar tomorrow, November 1, 2008:

• Garden Group Clean-Up - Leaf Raking at 9:00 a.m.

Today is the Eve of All Hallows (All Saints Day), also called “Halloween”. Wikipedia offers this information:

The term Halloween is shortened from All Hallows’ Even (both “even” and “eve” are abbreviations of “evening”, but “Halloween” gets its “n” from “even”) as it is the eve of “All Hallows’ Day”,[6] which is now also known as All Saints’ Day. It was a day of religious festivities in various northern European Pagan traditions,[3] until Popes Gregory III and Gregory IV moved the old Christian feast of All Saints’ Day from May 13 (which had itself been the date of a pagan holiday, the Feast of the Lemures) to November 1. In the ninth century, the Church measured the day as starting at sunset, in accordance with the Florentine calendar. Although All Saints’ Day is now considered to occur one day after Halloween, the two holidays were, at that time, celebrated on the same day. Liturgically, the Church traditionally celebrated that day as the Vigil of All Saints, and, until 1970, a day of fasting as well. Like other vigils, it was celebrated on the previous day if it fell on a Sunday, although secular celebrations of the holiday remained on the 31st. The Vigil was suppressed in 1955, but was later restored in the post-Vatican II calendar. (Read the entire Wikipedia article here.)

The Rev. Bosco Peters of New Zealand (see his site at The Naked Liturgist) suggests the following collect for the Vigil of All Saints:

God of the universe, you are the source of life and light: dispel the darkness of our hearts, that by your brightness we may know you to be the true God and the eternal light, loving and living now and for ever. Amen.