All Saints' Day is essentially the celebration of the Church Triumphant. However, the question is sometimes brought up about why we celebrate all the saints on one day when each has his or her own feast day. Pope Urban IV (Pope 1261-64) answers this by explaining that All Saints' Day is a day to celebrate those saints who are unbeknownst to us and to make recompense for any deficiencies in our celebration of other feast days.
We, as Catholics, have been celebrating this day in some shape or form since at least the late 4th century AD. Traditionally, Catholics in adjacent communities would get together to exchange and divide relics and to share a common feast once a year. Historians believe this was often on the Sunday following Pentecost, as there is evidence of an invitation by St. Basil of Caesarea to neighboring bishops for a celebration of the Church’s martyrs in 397 AD. Pope Gregory IV (Pope 827-844) named November 1 as the day of celebration for all the saints.
So why is this so pivotal a day for us? We look at the Church Triumphant as an ideal. On All Saints' Day, we are reminded that we must honor those who are now part of the Church Triumphant as role models for a Christian life and to hope to share in their joy of receiving the ultimate blessing of living with God, our Father in Heaven.
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