Celebrate All Saints' Day at Home

13 October 2021

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As November 1 is still considered as a non-working national holiday in the Philippines, there are a lot of ways on how to celebrate the Feast of all Saints safely at home and with our family. Let’s take a look on some of the tips and ideas on how to enjoy the saints day party while honoring the well-known saints in our history.

1. Book reading about your favorite saints.

This is a great way to learn about the life and sacrifices that our different saints experienced in their lives just to proclaim the Holy Gospel and our Christian beliefs.

Learn good lessons from saint story.

We can honor them by sharing their stories and lessons that we learned from our favorite saints with the family.

2. Attend the mass.

Due to the pandemic, you can have the option to either attend the mass with your whole family on the church or parish nearest you or attend an online mass instead.

Attend the mass with family members.

Whichever you find safer and more comfortable with your whole family, it’s okay as long as you attend the mass to receive God’s blessing and honor our saints.

3. Create some saintly crafts and decorate your home.

After learning about the stories of some saints, it’s now time to apply what your kids learned by making some created crafts that can aesthetically describe their favorite Saints.

Home decoration or make some home made light candles.

The great thing about this is you can even add it up on your Christmas décor with some extra mama’s pride with your child’s creative crafts.

4. Sing some offertory songs for the saints.

Are you a family who loves music and has been gifted with golden voices? You can sing as a group some famous offertory songs for the saints while playing a guitar or piano at home. You can do this in between other activities as an ice-breaker to keep the celebration much interesting.

5. Baked some Saint-Themed goodies

Meanwhile, if you’re family is more into cooking and baking, you can organize a saint-themed baking contest and enjoy these snacks with your whole family. This is also a great time to spend with your kids while teaching them how to work in the kitchen.

6. Saintly Costume Party

If Halloween is the day to wear scary costumes, why not spend some time doing a DIY costume of your favorite saint. You can dress up your kids and let your children dress based on their favorite saint and tell them the story of how they proclaimed the Holy Gospel and held firmly unto their Catholic faith until their last breath.

There are many ways to celebrate the day of the holy martyrs, whether you're doing it alone, with friends, or with your family. As we celebrate All Saints Day, it's a great opportunity to pray to these saints and ask for their intercession for the conversion of sinners, so that we may all become saints and be strong in our Christian faith in giving God earnest gratitude.

Most people associate October holidays with Halloween, especially in the western part of the world. Meanwhile, Thanksgiving is the first holiday people think of when discussing November's festivities. However, there's a Catholic festival called All Saints' Day that falls in between these more well-known secular ones.

While All Souls' Day honors our deceased relatives but have not yet gone to heaven on November 2, All Saints' Day on November 1 honors all the martyrs of the Church, or those faithfully departed who have already ascended to heaven.

Despite the fact that All Saints' Day is a festival that honors both famous and lesser-known saints, the emphasis is mainly on well-known saints, according to the Roman Catholics tradition as there might probably be a lot of people who already attained heaven.

History of All Saints’ Day

Pope Boniface IV began the Feast for all the Martyrs by dedicating Rome's Parthenon to the Virgin Mary and all Christian martyrs in A.D. 609. The holiday's origins, on the other hand, go back much farther. Christians used to have a local church congregation where a martyr had died to commemorate them on the anniversary of their death. When a significant number of Christians were martyred at the same time or in the same location, bigger Christian communities and celebrations arose. Even while the church believed that every martyr should be honored, it eventually came to believe that there were far too many saints and martyrs for each of them to be given a separate feast day.

As a result, a single day was required to commemorate all martyrs and saints. Pope Boniface IV, who ruled in the seventh century, established a day to commemorate all martyrs.

On the contrary, there are some who disagree with the Catholic Church's version of All Saints Day's origins. Pope Gregory III, according to history, instituted the holiday in the early seventh century. A day to honor the "holy apostles and all saints, martyrs and confessors, of all the righteous made perfect who are at rest throughout the globe" was mentioned by him.

The first of November then was selected by Pope Gregory III as the day to celebrate all the saints.

The Roman Catholic Church and the Christian Church

On All Saints Day, Christians celebrate the belief that people in Heaven and on Earth are connected spiritually. The festival is celebrated by Catholics to remember and honor those who have crossed over to the other side and entered the Kingdom of Heaven. As a matter of fact, many traditionally Catholic nations have declared it a national holiday.

There are certain nations in the Roman Catholic Church where All Saints' Day is a Holy Day of Obligation, which means that attending to Mass on this day is mandatory unless you have a valid explanation like sickness. The solemnity of All Saints' Day is moved to the adjacent Sunday if 1 November falls on a Monday or a Saturday in a number of countries, including England and Wales, which do list All Saints’ Day as a Holy Day of Obligation. However, in these same circumstances, solemnity is still celebrated on November 1 in the United States, but there is no obligation to attend Mass.

On the other hand, All Saints Day in the United Methodist Church tradition is a holiday dedicated to thanking God for the lives and deaths of his saints, both well-known and the lesser-known saints. Those who have directly led a person to believe in Jesus, such as a family or friend, are also honored throughout Christian history, such as Peter the Apostle and Charles Wesley.

The Eastern Orthodox Church, as well as certain members of protestant churches including many Lutheran churches, also observe All Saints' Day. Eastern Christianity, on the other hand, celebrates it on the first Sunday after Pentecost.