Some web browsing

Well as we approach All Hallows Eve and the beginning of November and the remembrance of our dead, there is a bit of a discussion about what is the meaning of Halloween in light of the feast of All Saints with one blogger making the suggestion for the day would be the praying of the Litany of Saints

The Anchoress notes that:

"the other thing I love about All Hallow’s Eve is the next day: All Saints Day. That is a holy day of obligation that I particularly love, because there is an intimacy to it. In blustery weather, usually damp and chill, the Catholics troop to mass and remember those who came before us. It’s like spiritually visiting the graves of our beloved. We remember the stories and remember where we have come from, and that helps us to remember who we are. It helps remind us that we want to keep walking the straight, narrow path that will unite us all before the throne! And there is something about coming out of that mass and looking around; there is at autumn in full swing – the leaves baring, showing upraised arms that look like our prayers of supplication; there are the busy people in busy cars, zooming by indifferently, and somehow I feel so connected to all of the trees and all of the people. I feel at one with them, privileged to have been able to stop, remember and pray, in and for a world so busy, so indifferent, and so nakedly needful. I step out of the All Saints Day mass and feel a oneness that makes me feel, for however briefly it lasts, a keen and wistful love for the whole world."

Bishop Kevin Farrell gives a small reflection on All Hallows Eve as does Fr Charles Pope and asks "How about Halloween?"

Patheos.com has a couple of interesting posts about Halloween. Christine Paintner posts Luminous Wisdom of Night: Reflections on All Saints and All Souls and Star Foster reflects on the Hallows Tide.

An interesting reflection from a regular fan of Sacred Space about the role of Art at the Service of the Liturgy and a living example of of art live in action. 

An question reflection about kneeling, "On our knees, we're the same height as our children..."

The Washington Post has a piece discussing how there is "Nothing unreasonable about religious belief".

It’s not often that an Iranian Ayatollah addresses a Synod at the Vatican – in fact, until last week, it had never happened. But on Oct. 14, Ayatollah Seyed Mostafa Mohaghegh Ahmadabadi, popularly known as Mohaghegh Damad, gave an intervention at the Synod on the Middle East currently taking place in Rome, becoming the first Iranian Shi’ite Muslim ever to do so. Speaking with him in interview shortly after his speech, he discussed his relationship with the Iranian government and his controversial views on Israel but he also expressed concerns that secularism is leading to godless societies without values. A genial and somewhat eccentric Islamic scholar, he has a doctorate in law from the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium, and currently teaches law at Shahid Beheshti University in Tehran. A co-founder of the Common Word initiative which is trying to foster closer Catholic-Muslim relations, he said he has personally invited the Pope to visit Iran.