This year has been a bad year to die, and a very hard time to lose a loved one. The experience of dying and grieving has become particularly abnormal in the midst of the pandemic; the fear of infection forces us to act in ways which run counter to our deepest instincts. Imagine telling someone, last Christmas, that in 2020 many people would have to face the prospect of dying alone, or surrounded by masked strangers, even while their family were desperately longing to be with them.
A year ago, it would have been unthinkable that we might be prevented, by law, from visiting the dying or comforting the grieving. Who would have ever thought there would be national rules restricting who you can hug at a funeral? A year ago, you wouldn’t have allowed yourself to imagine it; it would have been too grim to contemplate.
There’s a particular horror in the idea of dying alone, and the fear of a lonely death haunts many of us. But in one or way another, death is always lonely. The grave is a solitary place, and death is a journey you have to undertake alone. Different cultures develop their own ways of lessening the loneliness of the grave, providing those who are grieving with some continuing connection to the dead. In the Christian Church, for the past thousand years, an important season for bridging the gap between the living and the dead has been the twin feasts of All Saints’ and All Souls’, on 1 and 2 November.
As the names suggest, both feasts offer the very opposite of solitude: they are opportunities to connect with multitudes, communities, vast companies of the dead. The first day celebrates the saints in heaven, the “cloud of witnesses” and the “great multitude which no man could number”, as they are described in Biblical texts read at this feast; the second day is for everyone else, all the “faithful departed” — an even greater crowd of souls.
The two feasts, now entwined, have separate histories, and weren’t always kept so close together. They have their origins in a diversity of local feasts which emerged in different parts of the Church during the first millennium, some commemorating all the saints, others all the departed. In different regions these were observed on various dates, in the spring and summer as well as in the winter. By the ninth century, however, 1 November had become the predominant date for the feast of All Saints’, and over the course of the next few centuries it was gradually supplemented by a second commemoration the following day.
By the later Middle Ages, these days formed a coherent and widely observed season of remembrance, known in medieval England as “Hallowtide”. The two days had distinct but related aims: All Saints’ was intended to celebrate the glorious dead and to ask for their prayers, but the purpose of All Souls’ was to pray for the dead, for those in Purgatory who needed the prayers of the living to help them in their passage to heaven. It was a time not only to remember the dead but to look after them, to give them assistance and comfort. On the nights of Hallowtide, church bells rang out to reassure the souls in Purgatory that the living had not forgotten them. It must have been profoundly comforting to the grieving, too, to feel that they could still do something to help those they had lost.
Join the discussion
Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber
To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.
Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.
Subscribe