All Saints and Souls

Officially Halloween is not celebrated in Spain, and there is no trick or treating that I am aware of. But the commercialism of what is called an American holiday has made it here as well as throughout other countries of Europe, so I have seen pumpkins and costumes galore these past two weeks.

The real holiday in Spain is November 1. All Saints' Day, or Todos los Santos, as it is stated on my calendar, is a big holiday, also commercially. More flowers are sold here during the week preceding Todos los Santos, and taken to cemeteries, than in any other week of the year. The city of Torrevieja, I read, operated free and frequent bus service from various places in town to the municipal cemetery all week, so that everyone could get out to eat and drink at the location where their dear departed were buried. Johannes drove with friends through some of the smaller towns in the Vega Baja region on Thursday and reported bunches of people walking to the cemeteries. Those stores that have permission to be open on holidays were open Friday morning, but when we went out to the ATM in the afternoon, the grocery store near the bank had closed at 2:00. It was very quiet in town.

I was surprised, when a friend gave me The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady to read this week, to see that Edith Holden, in her year's calendar, showed November 1 as All Saints' Day and November 2 as All Souls' Day. I had thought they were different words for the same day. The verses, notes, and drawings that Holden recorded in her diary in 1906, though delightful, gave no more information about the two days, so I had to go to the Internet to research my misconception. Wikipedia has informative entries for both All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day, and the latter includes a sentence that may explain the cause of my confusion:

In the Methodist Church, "saints" refer to all Christians and therefore, on All Saints' Day, the Church Universal, as well as the deceased members of a local congregation are honoured and remembered.

I was raised as a Methodist, so with this theological distinction, it makes perfect sense that I would think that "all saints" and "all souls" are synonymous. What I find less understandable is how the Roman Catholic tradition in Spain has managed to combine the family visitation, which I would consider an observance of All Souls (Nov. 2), with the day of All Saints on Nov. 1.

The Birmingham (Alabama) News, an unexpected source, offers some descriptions of the similarities and differences of All Saints, All Souls, and Halloween. But a blog post at the National Catholic Reporter provides the words of Pope Francis, as well as an explanation for the sequence of the two celebrations. The second celebration, I now see, is on my Spanish calendar as Conmemoración Fieles Difuntos (Commemoration of the Deceased Faithful, or All Souls' Day).