Origin of All Hallows Day

The earliest certain observance of a feast in honor of all the saints (hallows or hallowed) is an early fourth-century commemoration of "all the martyrs."   

In the early seventh century, after successive waves of invaders plundered the catacombs, Pope Boniface IV gathered up some 28 wagonloads of bones and reinterred them beneath the Pantheon, a Roman temple dedicated to all the gods. The pope rededicated the shrine as a Christian church. The Pantheon is still standing but is no longer a consecrated church.

According to Venerable Bede, the pope intended "that the memory of all the saints might in the future be honored in the place which had formerly been dedicated to the worship not of gods but of demons"

The first papal canonization occurred in 993; the lengthy process now required to prove extraordinary sanctity took form in the last 500 years. Today's feast honors the obscure as well as the famous—the saints each of us have known.

Hallowed be their names.