All Saints Day!

On Saturday we attended an All Saints party at the primary school. This is something that the Church just started doing last year on San Pedro. Many of us know Halloween as a time where people dress up in all sorts of costumes and go trick-or-treating. This is still done in Belize, however many do not know how Halloween started. Believe it or not folks, it started as a Catholic holiday, and in many ways became a pagan holiday. Halloween comes from the term "Hallows Eve". The Church celebrates all Saints Day on November First and 'Hallows Eve' is the eve of all saints. This is what Halloween got it's name from. On all souls day (the day after all saints day) the poor went door to door and begged for food. In return they promised to pray for the dead. They called the cakes they received "soul cakes" which isn't the biggest stretch from today's trick-or-treat candy. The soul cakes were a doughnut with a hole in the center making a circle, which represented eternity. Some cultures today still visit the cemetery on All Hallows, not for spooky reasons, but for the same reason others do on Memorial Day. Now today we see devils and witches running around and more evil being done than prayer being said for the salvation of souls. In an attempt to re-claim this holiday, the priests asked that we celebrate it with an all saints party. It was post-poned because of all the rain here. Instead of dressing up as witches and clowns and devils, we had all the children dress up as their favorite saint. There were games, face-painting, music, great food and awesome costumes. We had a contest too with prizes for the best costumes. Let me tell you, when you say costume-contest, people here go all out! It was great! We had many kids dress as Mary's, Saint Peter's, Saint Therese, St. Paul's and St. Benedict. We even had someone dress as Jesus on his way to Calvary carrying a huge cross! Yes, we ourselves even dressed up! Ali was Mother Teresa, Ann was St. Gianna, I forget who Alison was, and I was Blessed Kateri Tekawitha, the first Indian Saint. The pictures are below!