The question, how the saints and the Virgin Mary can hear so many thousands of prayers
addressed to them simultaneously in so many different places, without being clothed with the divine
attributes of omniscience and omnipresence, did not disturb the faith of the people. The scholastic
divines usually tried to solve it by the assumption that the saints read those prayers in the omniscient
mind of God. Then why not address God directly?
In addition to the commemoration days of particular saints, two festivals were instituted
for the commemoration of all the departed.
The Festival of All Saints^523 was introduced in the West by Pope Boniface IV. on occasion
of the dedication of the Pantheon in Rome, which was originally built by Agrippa in honor of the
victory of Augustus at Actium, and dedicated to Jupiter Vindex; it survived the old heathen temples,
and was presented to the pope by the Emperor Phocas, a.d. 607; whereupon it was cleansed, restored
and dedicated to the service of God in the name of the ever-Virgin Mary and all martyrs. Baronius
tells us that at the time of dedication on May 13 the bones of martyrs from the various cemeteries
were in solemn procession transferred to the church in twenty-eight carriages.^524 From Rome the
festival spread during the ninth century over the West, and Gregory IV. induced Lewis the Pious
in 835 to make it general in the Empire. The celebration was fixed on the first of November for the
convenience of the people who after harvest had a time of leisure, and were disposed to give thanks
to God for all his mercies.
The Festival of All Souls^525 is a kind of supplement to that of All Saints, and is celebrated
on the day following (Nov. 2). Its introduction is traced to Odilo, Abbot of Cluny, in the tenth
century. It spread very soon without a special order, and appealed to the sympathies of that age for
the sufferings of the souls in purgatory. The worshippers appear in mourning; the mass for the dead
is celebrated with the "Dies irae, Dies illa," and the oft-repeated "Requiem aeternam dona eis,
Domine." In some places (e.g. in Munich) the custom prevails of covering the graves on that day
with the last flowers of the season.
The festival of Michael the Archangel,^526 the leader of the angelic host, was dedicated tothe worship of angels,^527 on the 29th of September.^528 It rests on no doctrine and no fact, but on the
sandy foundation of miraculous legends.^529 We find it first in the East. Several churches in and near
in the Church of the Orphanage where there is a tablet to his memory." St. Labre evidently did not believe that "cleanliness is
next to godliness"(^523) Omnium Sanctorum Natalis, or Festivas, Solemnitas, Allerheiligenfest. The Greek church had long before a similar
festival in commemoration of all martyrs on the first Sunday after Pentecost, calledΚυριακὴτω̑ν Αγίωνπάντων.Chrysostom,
in a sermon for that day, says that on the Octave of Pentecost the Christians were surrounded by the host of martyrs. In the West
the first Sunday after Pentecost was devoted to the Trinity, and closed the festival part of the church year. See vol. III. 408.
(^524) Martyrologio Romano, May 13 and Nov. 1. The Pantheon or Rotunda, like Westminster Abbey, and St. Paul’s
Cathedral in London, contains the ashes of other distinguished men besides saints, and is the resting-place of Raphael, and since
1883 even of Victor Emanuel, the founder of the Kingdom of Italy, whom the pope regards as a robber of the patrimony of
Peter.
(^525) Omnium Fidelium defunctorum Memoria orCommemoratio, Allerseelentag.
(^526) Festum S. Michaelis, or Michaelis Archangeli, Michaelmas.
(^527) Hence also called Festum omnium Angelorum, St. Michael and all Angels.
(^528) In the Eastern church on November 8. The origin of the Eastern celebration is obscure.
(^529) Namely, sundry apparitions of Michael, at Chonae, near Colossae, in Monte Gargano in the diocese of Sipontum in
Apulia (variously assigned toa.d.492, 520, and 536), in Monte Tumba in Normandy (about 710), and especially one to Pope