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| Halloween Pumpkins, photo by Accuruss |
To tell you the truth, I like Halloween except for one thing: four hour traffic jams.
If you live in the metro, some people will be going back to the provinces while there are communities having their trick or treat events. Add them altogether and you get, ching!
The costumes are elaborate and cute as some buttons can be. And don't for get the pastries. Yet incidentally it's rooted in our faith too.
The newadvent.org Catholic encyclopedia can straigthen the dates for us. During the pontificate of Gregory III from 731 to 741 A.D. the Pope consecrated a chapel in St. Peter's Basilica to remember all the saints in heaven and adopted November 1 as the annual day of commemoration. His successor, Gregory IV (827-844) extended the memorial of all the saints to the whole of Christendom.
There is usually a vigil or evening prayers of a big feast day like during the Christmas vigil or the Easter vigil. The vigil for All Saints' Day was then Hallows' Eve or which now we popularly know as Halloween.
According to Jon Sorensen of Catholic Answers, Halloween didn't really evolve from the Samhain festival in Europe. November 1 was far from any Celtic festivals done during the time. What we now practice as Halloween "developed from the past 500 years." This was quite late compared to Celtic culture which started during during the prevalence of the old Roman empire. Quoting historian Ronald Hutton, Samhain "cannot be be proved from the tales themselves" meaning the end of October and the first days of November and were amalgamations of stories that revolved around the culture and the time period.
What about All Souls' Day? Early church faithful prayed for the dead as listed in the diptych, an ancient notebook of sorts which listed the names of the faithful as part of the Communion of Saints. Jewish tradition on the prayers for the dead can be seen in 2 Maccabees 12:43-46. Also, the fathers of the Church like Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria and Origen were clear with the concept of praying for the dead and their purgation before reaching Heaven. By the 6th century, Benedictine monasteries were praying for their departed in allotted days of prayer. Eventually it became custom throughout the whole Church.
There's a part during every mass after the consecration when the priest prays for the departed, of those in heaven, and for us here on earth. That's the prayer for the Church, the entire Church, those in heaven, purgatory and on earth, that spiritual solidarity known as the Communion of Saints. In essence, every time we hear mass, weekly or daily, we pray for all of the Church too.
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| St. Brendan the Navigator, photo by Colin Park CC BY-SA 2.0 |
I can understand some who would like to have saints for costume role models. How about St. Brendan the Voyager (484-577), one of the great Irish saints. As a bonus, in a Marvel comic episode St. Brendan helped Merlin defeat a dark lord named Chthon to get the Darkhold book to keep the evil in the world at bay. Of course, this tandem was just in the comics.
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Source:
NewAdvent.org. All Saints' Day. Retrieved October 30, 2016 from http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01315a.htm
NewAdvent.org. All Souls' Day. Retrieved October 30, 2016 from http://wwvv.newadvent.org/cathen/01315b.htm
NewAdvent.org. Diptych. Retrieved October 30, 2016 from http://wwvv.newadvent.org/cathen/05022a.htm
NewAdvent.org. Communion of Saints. Retrieved October 30, 2016 from http://wwvv.newadvent.org/cathen/04171a.htm
NewAdvent.org. Saint Brendan. Retrieved October 30, 2016 from http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02758c.htm
J. Sorensen. Halloween or Samhain? Catholic Answers. Retrieved October 30, 2016 from http://www.catholic.com/blog/jon-sorensen/halloween-or-samhain
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