Students and faculty celebrated All Saints’ Day today during community time. The school community walked to the St. Vincent de Paul church after advisory, which was a ten minute walk.
“Mass today was very engaging,” sophomore Juliette Wu said. “I appreciate how we were able to go outside as a community to the church to honor the saints and the deceased,”
All Saints’ Day is a religious day that celebrates all those who have died and reached heaven, but has a focus on officially recognized saints of the Catholic church and those who have recently passed away, according to Catholic Online.
The location of the service today was the St. Vincent de Paul church, which was established in 1901. The building itself has many Gothic architectural elements, according to art history teacher Sarah Garlinghouse.
“St. Vincent de Paul church follows the traditional format of a basilica church,” Garlinghouse said. “It has a center nave and a transept, along with an apse and side aisles,”
Having mass at a local venue that also has a distinct architectural style serves as a great example of understanding the history of buildings in the city, as it can also be applied to school courses such as AP Art History, according to Garlinghouse.
“It is also using modern day building materials like concrete so it doesn’t need some of the structural support that, say, a Gothic cathedral will,” Garlinghouse said. “It’s a nice way for students to familiarize with traditional and historical church design,”
All Saints’ Day was originally started by Pope Boniface IV, and was later recognized as an official holy day by Pope Gregory III in the mid-eighth century, according to Catholic Online. While celebrations of All Saints’ Day vary from across the world, with “Dia de los Inocentes” from Mexico occurring on the same day and offerings for the dead being a prominent tradition across Europe and Asia.
“I found that the priest’s speech about San Francisco was really interesting, especially his analogy to fog and the hills of the city,” Wu said. “I thought that our city and community was very well represented in the mass, and it was very cool to see the things we are learning about in art history class up close.”
