On the evening of 31 October, children in costumes ring doorbells and demand candy. Fewer of them know that Halloween is short for All Hallows’ Eve, the night before All Saints’ Day. The next morning, 1 November, the Church celebrates all the saints, and there is no All Saints’ Day emoji to say so: the keyboard has the pumpkin 🎃, but not the feast it leads into.
All Saints’ Day does not only honor canonized saints, with their own date in the calendar and their statue in the church. It also celebrates the unknown ones: the quiet great-aunt, the neighbor who helped without being asked, all those whom God alone knows. The readings of the day include Revelation’s “great multitude which no one could count”, followed by the Beatitudes. The day after, All Souls’ Day, the Church prays for the dead; the two feasts belong together, like the front and back of the same hope.
An All Saints’ Day emoji could show that crowd: figures packed closely together, all with halos, impossible to tell apart. Or the palm branches the redeemed hold in Revelation, on a white background, the liturgical color of the day. Send in your version, and remember: holiness is open to everyone, and so is the form below.
Amen !by AI Generator
Amen !by AI Generator
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