All Souls

Rosaenstock-Huessy argues that the feast of All Souls is the source of Western liberty: “Liberty was promised to all souls, liberty, the great promise of Revolution, is first heard in the Occident at All Souls” ( Out of Revolution , 510).

The feast accomplishes this by inserting death and the Final Judgment into the rhythm of the Christian calendar. Mortals have freedom insofar as they embrace death in life, insofar as they are able to shed old habits, loyalties, patterns of life, and live on to embrace new ones.

This liberty All Souls gave to the Western church. Freedom was, Rosenstock points out, the theme of the All Souls liturgy: “’Free Thou,’ the Mass for All Souls beseeches Heaven, ‘Free Thou the souls of all believers from the punishment of hell, from the deep abyss, free them from the lion’s maw. May thy standard-bearer, Michael, bring them into the Holy Light which thou didst promise to Abraham and his seed” (510).

He adds provocatively that this emphasis on liberty distinguishes East and West. The Eastern church he characterizes as the church of “holiness and adoration,” while in the west Christianity was always fighting for “salvation and deliverance” (510). A generalization, surely, but one that has something in it.