Collect for Trinity 21 and All Saints Day
Blessed Lord, who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Help us to hear them, to read, mark, learn and inwardly digest them that, through patience, and the comfort of your holy word, we may embrace and for ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ.
Holy God, you have called witnesses from every nation and revealed your glory in their lives. Grant to us the same faith and love that, following their example, we may be sustained by their fellowship and rejoice in their triumph; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Thessalonians 2: 1-8
John 1: 1-14
What Hallowtide, or ‘Hallowmas’ is: A ‘Triduum’, or ‘Three days.’
Beginning on All Hallow’s Eve: the evening before All Hallows day – a vigil of prayer, fasting and preparation for the feast.
All Hallows, or ‘All Saints’: a time of feasting and celebration of the victory and life won through Christ and those Saints and Martyrs who have kept the faith and through whom His church has been built.
All Souls: A day to remember all who have gone before, especially friends and family, with gifts of apples and ‘soulcakes’ (usually filled with sweet spices and fruit, decorated with the sign of the cross before baking) being given as alms.
Hallowtide celebrates the light of Christ that will support and shine through the dark days of Winter.
What Hallowmas is not:
Samhain: a Pagan religious festival and in many Celtic traditions, New Year’s day. While not sharing their belief, we respect those who are sincere.
As opposed to:
Halloween: An American import during which people make shedloads of money by selling tat, normally made of unrecyclable and indestructible plastic, and during which children are encouraged to beg for money with menaces to buy tooth-rotting sweets made of 100% artificial ingredients.
And worse, it has increasingly become an excuse for an insidious excuse for darkness and propagation of evil. Violent and horrific media encourages naïve people to believe that ‘it’s only a bit of fun’ when it plainly isn’t.
Experience shows, however, that addressing the above directly isn’t all that effective – if people have no appreciation from a Christian perspective, they dismiss our opinion without understanding what we say. Instead, the way to defeat the darkness is to be the light that darkness can never overcome. And love is the vehicle to shine that light.
Hallowmas is a season we should not ignore, but instead celebrate as a festival of light, in the beauty of Autumn colours and enjoying a time for creation to rest in peace. Halloween, in modern times, has become the embodiment of darkness. As Christians, we must have no part of it.
Previous Posts
Praying Together 29th June 2025
Jesus is looking for commitment. Absolute, unconditional, commitment. When I think of what that means, I’m always minded of Martina Navratilova’s remark: “The difference between involvement and commitment is like ham and eggs. The chicken is involved; the pig is committed.”
Praying Together 22nd June 2025
As Christians, may we never regard mercy and compassion towards others as weakness, naivety or gullibility, but display the traits which demonstrate that we follow a Saviour who came to rescue those left behind.
Praying Together 15th June 2025
You couldn’t fly a kite inside a church building –for the Kite to fly you’d have to go into the windy street outside. Where does that place the need for the Spirit to act?
Praying Together 8 June 2025
Of all the strange things happening on the Day of Pentecost, perhaps the most puzzling is when God appears to have second thoughts. In Genesis 11, He makes it difficult for people to understand each other’s language
Praying Together 1st June 2025
The song by Mary Black, ‘Bless the Road’, while written as from a parent whose child is leaving home alone for the first time – maybe first day at primary school, going to college, beginning an independent life – always puts me in mind of the thoughts and blessing of Jesus as He prays for His disciples before His Ascension.
Praying Together 25th May 2025
‘Peace I give to you… do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not be afraid.’
His peace is not remote and only there at the end of things – His Peace is with us now.
Praying Together 18th May 2025
So the commandment is a challenge. To love those who betray you. Those who jeer. Those who wield the whips embedded with flint, hammer in the nails, pierce your side.
Praying Together 11th May 2025
Wherever there are people who have no freedom to make choices about their lives, where there is inequality and injustice, slavery exists.
Praying Together 4th May 2025
But difficult as it is to forgive, it is even harder to be forgiven – even though words of forgiveness have been offered, there will be times during early sleepless hours of wondering whether it will ever be possible to forgive oneself.
Praying Together April 27th 2025
The passage from Matthew’s Gospel gives a warning and example against which every Christian teacher and leader must be tested. As fallen humans, everyone will fall short of perfection– but we can measure lives against it.
Praying Together 20th April 2025
So together, morning, noon and night, we shout Thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Praying Together 13th April 2025
He is sinless, we were not – but He takes our sin unto Himself, allowing us the freedom to choose to serve His purpose rather than our own