Daily Gospel Reflection
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October 31, 2021
One of the scribes came to Jesus and asked him,
“Which is the first of all the commandments?”
Jesus replied, “The first is this:
Hear, O Israel!
The Lord our God is Lord alone!
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,
with all your soul,
with all your mind,
and with all your strength.
The second is this:
You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
There is no other commandment greater than these.”
The scribe said to him, “Well said, teacher.
You are right in saying,
‘He is One and there is no other than he.’
And ‘to love him with all your heart,
with all your understanding,
with all your strength,
and to love your neighbor as yourself’
is worth more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.”
And when Jesus saw that he answered with understanding,
he said to him,
“You are not far from the kingdom of God.”
And no one dared to ask him any more questions.
At the end of an impressive speech, modern public speakers often yell, “Mic drop!” to emphasize nothing more can be said on a subject. I imagine that this is the situation Jesus inspired at the end of today’s gospel.
The scribe, trying to stump Jesus, is left instead in agreement with him. Jesus, rather than choosing one of the ten old commandments, throws out two new, equally irrefutable commandments. The crowd is left speechless. “No one dared to ask him any more questions.”
Mic drop.
Jesus makes it clear that there is a difference between following the rules of faith and living out one’s faith through the love of God and neighbor. His statements made the crowd feel uncomfortable, maybe even guilty. Jesus asks them to look introspectively at their faith lives, and he does the same for you and me.
There are so many areas in my life where I check the boxes of faith. Daily prayer? Check. Mass on Sunday? Check. Ten Commandments? Check. Yet, all of this means nothing if I neglect loving action toward God and neighbor.
How often am I uncharitable with family and friends? How often do I pass by someone on the street who needs help or make excuses not to get more involved in work for social justice? As I reflect more on Jesus’s words, I realize how radical it would be if everyone loved others as much as we love ourselves.
It requires waking up each day and recognizing everything as a gift. Nothing is mine. Everything is God’s. Every moment is holy and sacramental, an encounter with Christ and the opportunity to love him more.
It is when we live out our faith through this radical love that Jesus shows us that we are close to the kingdom of God.
Prayer
O God, whose love never fails, give us the insight and understanding of the scribe. May we hear your commands, and may they find a home in us and guide us to your truth. As we walk in your ways, we ask you to open the doors of the heavenly kingdom to us. Amen.
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!