The Communion of Saints –
At the beginning of November in the Catholic Calendar there is a flurry of heavenly feasts. All Saints Day, which celebrates those who are in paradise, is followed immediately by All Souls Day, with its focus on the dead who still need our prayers. The feasts themselves go back to early medieval Catholicism. They became a source of division at the time of the Reformation when the preoccupation with releasing souls from purgatory was seen by the Reformers as manipulative, mercenary and lacking in a proper trust in God’s mercy.
