| November 01, 2020 | This year we reach the 1180th anniversary of the institution of this festival"November, happy month, that enters with Todos los Santos and leaves with San Andrés".Each one of the hundreds and hundreds of sayings that the Spanish proverb collects, represents one of the values ??contributed by the people throughout the centuries, and that always accompany and illustrate us in our daily lives.
As D.
Miguel de Cervantes said in Don Quixote: "Sayings are short sentences taken from the experience and speculation of our ancient sages." And from very old comes the origin of the Festival with which the month of November begins every year.The day of all the saints:The Solemnity of All Saints' Day is a holiday instituted by the Christian Church in honor of All Saints and Saints, - known and unknown -, which has existed throughout the history of the Church.The origins of this celebration date back to the first century of Christianity.
Documents from that time show us that ancient Christians were already celebrating the anniversary of the martyrs of Christ.And do not confuse this holiday, or identify it, with the Day of the All Souls, since both in its origin and in its content, they refer to two totally different celebrations.Millennial origin celebration:For more than a thousand years, the Feast of All Saints has been celebrated on November 1 .
This is one of the great solemnities of the Liturgical Year, and it has been celebrated since 840 AD, when Pope Gregory IV extended its celebration to the entire Universal Church.
This year we celebrate its 1180th Anniversary .All Saints' Day is a festive day, a day of joy, a day of obligation (the priest wears white at Mass), in which we honor the memory of all those who are for believers, examples of life Christian.
For this reason, the characteristic of this day is to listen to Mass and dedicate it as a "gift" to the memory of all Saints, which the Catholic Church collects in its Saints.As I have indicated, it is a day of obligation, but it also coincides that this year it falls on Sunday.
Therefore, in the parishes of Totana (and in those of the whole world) we will have the same Masses that are celebrated every Sunday of the year, but with the character of Solemnity.All Saints' Vigil:As with other Christian celebrations, the day before the celebration of the Solemnity of Saints, there was a preparatory activity, which was called All Saints' Vigil.This had its origin as a result of the Christianization of the Celtic peoples, around the end of the 2nd century AD.
These peoples had a celebration, the Samhain-, in which they worshiped the dead and the god of the afterlife; they offered human sacrifices; they celebrated the beginning of the harvests; and also the beginning of the new year.
Over the years, these pagan customs were abandoned, and the celebration was turned into a celebration of the eve of the Christian feast of All Saints.Considering this, we see that All Saints' Eve has a Christian origin, but it is NOT a Christian holiday, since some of the pagan peoples preserved part of their traditions and altered in a syncretic way, the Christian sense of preparation of this eve.
Unfortunately, the Christian meaning of this day has "faded" over time, being replaced by the well-known manifestations of witches, skulls and other expressions related to the macabre.
The name of this eve, was translated within the English culture, with the name of All Hallow's Eve .
Over the years, its pronunciation changed until it reached the word that is used today: "halloween".But for Christians in general, and for Totaneros in particular, the first days of November are full of history, sentiment, tradition, religiosity, ...
and, as being able to celebrate the 1180th Anniversary this year indicates us , of continuity in time.This year, due to the effects of the harsh pandemic that we are experiencing and suffering, we will not be able to celebrate this holiday with the usual joy and moments of meeting with family and friends, but that is not why we are going to stop wishing each other a Happy Valentine's Day! All Saints!!Diego Jesus Romera Gonzalez
