Daily Gospel Reflection
Join the Notre Dame family of faith. Receive God’s Word and a unique reflection in your inbox each day.
October 31, 2020
On a sabbath Jesus went to dine
at the home of one of the leading Pharisees,
and the people there were observing him carefully.
He told a parable to those who had been invited,
noticing how they were choosing the places of honor at the table.
“When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet,
do not recline at table in the place of honor.
A more distinguished guest than you may have been invited by him,
and the host who invited both of you may approach you and say,
‘Give your place to this man,’
and then you would proceed with embarrassment
to take the lowest place.
Rather, when you are invited,
go and take the lowest place
so that when the host comes to you he may say,
‘My friend, move up to a higher position.’
Then you will enjoy the esteem of your companions at the table.
For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled,
but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”
Growing up, I attended a summer camp called Camp Guadalupe. Once during a session on vice and virtue, we formed a line to take our best hit at breaking open a piñata that signified vice with the stick, which symbolized “virtue.” Each one of us rushed to the front of the queue, hoping to make the strongest, hardest hit, breaking through “vice,” allowing the candy inside to tumble out.
Before we could begin, however, the camp counselors swapped the line so those at the front of the line were now at the back. Even at summer camp, the exalted were humbled, and the humble were exalted, just like in today’s parable, when the guests who took the higher seats of honor were asked to assume lower positions, while those who sat in lower status seats moved up.
Humility means valuing God’s ways above everything else. This virtue is all-too-often overlooked, especially in a world that values success in the forms of power, wealth, and influence. How, then, can we cultivate humility?
One way to grow in humility is to assume tasks that are humbling. Ultimately, we can look to Christ as a model of humility. What is more humbling than laying down one’s life as the Son of God? Today, let us ask the Holy Spirit to help us discover new ways of practicing the virtue of humility.
Prayer
Lord, it is sometimes difficult to believe that those who humble themselves will be exalted, especially when those who seem to act unjustly are held in high esteem. Breathe your Spirit into us so that we may bear the injustices of this world as you bore the cross. Breathe your Spirit into us that we may also have the competence to see how we might ameliorate these injustices. Give us the courage to act when appropriate. We eagerly await your just judgement, Lord, and look towards your coming kingdom.
Saint of the Day
Halloween might be the second largest secular holiday, but it is a holiday that is also distinctly Christian in origin.
October 31st is also known as All Hallows’ Eve—the “eve” before All Saints Day, or “all hallows.” That term, “hallowed,” means “holy”—as in in the English translation of the Our Father prayer, in which we declare God’s name to be “hallowed.” October 31st marks the beginning of "Allhallowtide" which concludes with November 2nd, the feast of All Souls.
This holiday stems from pagan and Christian influences. Halloween traditions bear many similarities to the Gaelic harvest festival, Samhain, which is perhaps responsible for its current place in the calendar at the height of autumn.
For most of Catholic history, important feast days were marked by a vigil celebration the night before, similar to celebrations contemporary Christians currently hold on Christmas Eve and the liturgical celebration of the Easter Vigil. All Hallows’ Eve was the evening celebration commencing the feast of All Saints Day. Its place in the calendar is also certainly due to the development of the All Saints' day celebration, which developed separately from harvest festivals.
Ever since the veneration of martyrs began during the earliest centuries of Christianity, Christians have honored holy men and women who have died. The first church buildings that were not homes were shrines called martyria, built above the tomb of a martyr, where the local community prayed for that saint's intercession. An overwhelming amount of early Christian practice was focused around a particular person and their following of Christ into death and resurrection. The early Christian communities gathered around Christ's paschal mystery in the celebration of the Eucharist, but their communities were quite literally grounded in the witness of their brothers and sisters in faith—built upon those men and women who had completely handed over their lives to Christ.
Eventually, after many centuries of persecution, there were many Christian martyrs whose names were lost. Thus, a feast of all martyrs was established the Sunday after Pentecost. On May 13 of 609, Pope Boniface IV obtained the Pantheon in Rome from Emperor Phocas, and he dedicated the Pantheon to the Blessed Virgin Mary and All Martyrs. Nearly one hundred and fifty years later, Pope Gregory III dedicated a new chapel in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome to “the Redeemer, his holy Mother, all the apostles, martyrs, and confessors, and all the just and perfect who are at rest throughout the whole world” on May 13, 732. Thus, the feast of All Saints was born.
In the ninth century, Pope Gregory IV moved the feast of All Saints from May 13 to November 1, largely out of consideration for the many pilgrims traveling to Rome for the festival. During the hot month of May, the pilgrims experienced hardship from the sweltering Italian heat, so the Pope translated the festival to a cooler time of year. In some locations, it seems as though November 1st was chosen as a means of appropriating harvest festivals such as Samhain. As their pagan neighbors celebrated the spirits of the departed and mischievous supernatural spirits, the Christians feted their predecessors in the faith and prayed for their intercession.
Many of today’s Halloween customs come from the harvest festival traditions and Christian traditions that developed in tandem around Allhallowtide. In Europe in those days, the faithful rang bells for souls in purgatory and baked cakes known as “soul cakes.” Poorer families, most often, the children, would visit households to collect these cakes. Some traditions credit the development of jack-o'-lanterns to the custom of lighting lamps to guide souls to the afterlife or to purgatory.
After the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century, these All Hallow's Eve traditions waned on the European continent but continued in other places, like the Celtic nations of Scotland and Ireland. Thus, when Scottish and Irish immigrants came to America, they brought with them traditional "Hallowe'en" practices, which many of their American neighbors also embraced.
One of the murals in the Basilica of the Sacred Heart on Notre Dame's campus presents us with a vision of heaven that awaits all those in purgatory. This image shows Mary and Jesus attending to Joseph at his deathbed as choirs of angels in heaven await his soul.
On the feast of All Hallows’ Eve, let us pray for all the souls of the faithful departed!