Praise, bounty, and rest on All Hallows' Eve

The most natural testimonies of our rejoicings in God are first his praises set forth with cheerful alacrity of mind, secondly our comfort and delight expressed by a charitable largeness of somewhat more than common bounty, thirdly sequestration from ordinary labours, the toils and cares whereof are not meet to be companions of such gladness. Festival solemnity therefore is nothing but the due mixture as it were of these three elements, praise, and bounty, and rest - Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity V.70.2

Hooker's words are a reminder that festivity requires cultural and social expression alongside the liturgical. His description of this as "natural" points to our creation as cultural and social beings, alongside our vocation as liturgical beings. Festivity which fails to embrace the cultural and social fails to address fundamental aspects of our nature. This being so, there is a missional imperative for the Church to foster and nurture the cultural hinterland which surrounds many feast days. Dismissing these as cultural hang-overs of Christendom and taking a perverse sectarian delight in liturgical celebrations standing aloof from cultural activity inevitably results in a desiccated experience of the festivals.

And so it is right that All Hallows' Eve is marked by what Hooker terms bounty and rest - or what the Book of Sports (that great Anglican defence of festivity) described as "honest mirth". The days of Autumn are growing shorter and colder, most trees are now bereft of leaves, and the landscape is preparing for the stillness of the time come. It is "natural" to hold festival at this time of the year, to experience joy and light amidst gathering darkness and coldness. The vision glorious of All Saints' Day is thus more fully experienced, the liturgical celebration spilling over into cultural and social experience even as the beatific vision enjoyed now by the Saints will embrace and gather up all aspects of our being.

This too is seen in spooky costumes of Hallow'een. As The High Church Puritan has said, this is "a satirical pageant; a mockery of long defeated foes". In words from Luther used by C.S. Lewis at the outset of The Screwtape Letters:

The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn.

Similarly, the bounty of Autumn, represented by the pumpkins and apples which abound at this season, has an iconic significance of the fullness of life which is set before us in the Communion of Saints, a fullness and plentitude to be experienced in body and soul, the "unspeakable joys" of the collect for All Saints.

To deny the festivities of All Hallows' Eve is not to somehow focus on the liturgical celebration of All Saints' Day. Rather, it is to deny the light, goodness, and joy which tomorrow's liturgy celebrates: it is to seek to confine it, when its very purpose is to overflow into all aspects of our cultural and social life, and there to lighten our darkness.

Let us, then, enjoy the festivities of All Hallows' Eve, the bounty and mirth, knowing that they flow from and return to the Light's abode, to the celestial Salem.

(The painting is Debbie Criswell, 'October Moon - Folk Art Autumn Landscape'.)

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