The last thing that Jesus told his disciples before ascending to heaven was, “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Matt 28:19-20). Christians have done missionary work from the time of St. Paul down to the present, but not always in the spirit that Christ probably intended. Jesus had a way of blessing people and letting them know that they were loved before calling them to conversion. Christians, on the other hand, have engaged in wars against non-Christians, have warred against one another, and burned one another at the stake in the cause of correct Christian teaching. In our own country, Indian children were removed from their families and placed in boarding schools with the goal of separating them from their language and culture and Christianizing them. The frequent catch phrase was, “Drive the Indian out of the Indian.”

It is interesting that in Scripture there is an alternate model of evangelization, which does not attempt to drive out “pagan” religious beliefs. It invite people to a deeper understanding of their existing beliefs. A prime example is St. Paul’s message to the people of Athens, where he discovers a statue to an unknown God. “Let me tell you who this God is that you do not know.” Another example is the visit of the Magi. The Magi are clearly foreigners and probably practitioners of astrology, not exactly mainstream Judaism or Christianity. Yet they were welcome at the crib. The message seems to be that all sincere seekers of wisdom will eventually find their way to God.

This more moderate approach to evangelization lies behind many of the customs that we associate with this Halloween weekend. Among the Celtic people who settled in what is now Ireland and Scotland, New Year’s Day was November 1. New Year’s Eve was a time of terror. In Celtic mythology on this one night, the line between the living and the dead is very thin, and the spirits of the dead are free to leave their burial grounds and roam the streets, haunting their old villages. Since the dead possess mysterious powers, the living are at a competitive disadvantage when visited by one of these ghosts on October 31. Living people might try to trick the ghost by wearing a disguise, scare the ghost by carrying a frightful looking lantern, or bribe the ghost with a treat. Trick or Treating back then was no child’s play!

Early missionaries to Ireland did not try to eradicate these customs, but give them a Christian understanding of our relationship with the dead. In the ninth century Pope Gregory III moved the Feast of All Holy Martyrs, which had been celebrated in May, to November 1 and renamed it The Feast of All Saints. The dead are not to be feared. Those who have reached heaven are in a place of joy and celebration. Their desire is to help us and support us on our journey to heaven. October 31 was even given a Christian name, All Hallows Eve. Although the old Celtic customs survive, they come to us with a sense of fun and not as an existential threat.

This Sunday we celebrate the Feast of All Souls, which falls on November 2, the day after All Saints. It too has a cultural history. When missionaries arrived in what is now Mexico, they found that the native Aztec people had a much different attitude toward death and the afterlife than the Celts. Death was a time of liberation and fulfillment. Ancestors were honored for having found fulfilment. Families would gather for picnics at burial grounds, with special foods that symbolized their belief that death had been “swallowed up.” This celebration continued for a month. Missionaries sought to make November 2, All Souls Day, the focus of these activities. These customs live on in Chicago, where Latino families continue to erect family altars to the dead and prepare special foods for the Day of the Dead. On All Souls Day, we also pray for the dead, for those whose journey to eternal happiness may not be complete.

Last week I took a three-day break (sort of like a long weekend in the middle of the week) and rode the train to St. Paul and back. It is a beautiful ride, hugging the banks of the Mississippi all the way from La Crosse to downtown St. Paul. On the farms, the combines were busy harvesting the last of the corn. All Saints and All Souls are the harvest feasts of the church year, a time to think about our ultimate future with God.

                                                                               Fr Joe