St. Mary's students celebrate All Saints Day

Halloween is over. While it's usually considered a dark and scary holiday it actually precedes a day meant to celebrate those who brought hope and light to the world.

Thursday is All Saints Day, an important day for the Christian community.

Students at St. Mary's Catholic Church learn more than reading, writing and arithmetic.
Religion is a hands-on part of their education. So for All Saints Day the sixth-graders organized the mass.

"Which means we chose all the readings and all the songs and picked out students to read the readings and sing the songs," Savannah Hutko said.

So, what is All Saints Day?

Harvey Hoopes said, "I'd say All Saints Day is really important day for our church, because it celebrates not just the saints we have throughout the church calendar throughout the year, but all the unknown saints God has proclaimed saints when they went to heaven."

Savannah said, "It is a holy day of obligation, which means Catholics are obliged to go to church even though it's not a Sunday."

All Saints Day falls on November 1, the day after "All Hallows Eve," commonly known as Halloween.

Griffin Lisle said, "Some people think about Halloween as just a dark time but it really means just the day before All Saints Day and I think you should try to come to church on All Saints Day."

Friday is another important day for Roman Catholics. It's All Soul's Day, also called "Day of the Dead." It's a Roman Catholic day of remembrance for friends and loved ones who have passed away.