The people's voice of reason
The people's voice of reason
October 31, he2024 – Today is October 31. This means far too many people will go to work wearing tacky costumes and most of us will consume insanely high levels of sugar today. It also means that Children dressed in costumes and will go door-to-door asking for free candy and that teens and even many adults will go to costume parties tonight. When you are out on the roads this evening be aware that children will be out and about (in many cases in dark costumes) walking up and down the roads. If there ever was a time to slow down your car and be careful – that time is now. Be prepared for unexpected visitors seeking free candy treats – it might be wise to put the dog inside and cut on the outside lights.
Modern Halloween is a very American holiday; but it has its origins in Europe.
The Catholic Church has saint feast days. All canonized saints have a feast day. Saint Jerome, Saint Augustine, Saint James, Saint Mark, Saint John, Saint Brigid, Saint Mary of Egypt, etc., all have their feast days on the liturgical calendar where they can be remembered. These are a fraction of the actual saints. Most of us know people who lived very saintly lives and are presumably up in heaven with the named saints in the Heavenly Court even though they were never actually canonized by the Church.
The Church recognized this so created a feast day for all the other saints. This feast day is All Saints day or All Hallows Day. That holiday was originally set on May 1. Pope Gregory III (born in 690 – in office from 731 to 741) moved that feast day from mid-May to November 1. Catholic Churches around the world will be holding memorial masses for all of our sainted loved ones and even those saints we have long forgotten on Friday, November 1, 2024.
The Catholic Church also believed that the dead who were baptized and who were faithful; but who did not always live the most ideal of lives needed a period of purification before they joined the communion of Saints in Heaven. This place was purgatory.
In 998, the Abbot of the Monastery of Cluny, St. Odilio added a new feast day, All Souls' Day, on November 2, for all of the faithful departed – be they in Heaven with Jesus or earning their wings in Purgatory. All Souls Day is a day to pray for your friends and family who are who might be in Purgatory.
Most societies have some sort of a harvest festival. In the Northern Hemisphere harvest is in the fall. The Irish had a pagan feast day at the end of October (they similarly had feast days to end most months). Some remnants of that earlier pagan culture remained among the peasantry for centuries after conversion to Christianity. Given that the Church had a feast day for all of the Saintly departed – November 1 AND a feast day for the good people being purified for their final reward in Purgatlry, why is there not a day for those souls who are damned. The peasantry reasoned that if the Saints are honored on November 1 – then the night before All Saints Day was the night of the damned – Halloween. This was never an official Church holiday but it adopted a lot of the pre-existing pagan harvest festivals and Halloween on October 31 was born.
The Irish peasants would beat on pots and pans to let the damned know that they were not forgotten every October 31.
When the Black Death, probably the bubonic plague, killed half of the European population in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Century, All Souls Day became much more significant for the survivors. In France, the November 2 All Souls Day remembrance became a day for people to dress up in costumes and hold parades. People would dress as knights, popes, kings, lepers, peasants, priests, etc. and follow a person dressed as a devil in sort of a conga line chain ending in the cemetery to symbolize that the grave is the final destination of all men no matter how great or how small.
In the Seventeenth Century, people from all over Europe began immigrating to England's North American colonies. Irish immigrants and French immigrants, both being Catholic in faith, intermingled over a common faith and traditions between the to groups blended. The French costumed moved to the Day of the Damned. The Irish focus on Hell gave the French masquerades a more macabre twist and the costumes became ghosts, goblins, monsters, vampires, etc. Asking for beer and cakes was a Guy Fawkes Day (November 5) tradition in England (Fawkes was a Catholic plotter who was executed for trying to blow up the Parliament to lead a Catholic uprising). Halloween probably borrowed that English tradition for what became "trick or treating" from this English celebration. The Irish made lanterns from turnips in those Celtic harvest festivals. In America, that became pumpkins and the Jack O' Lantern was born. By the early 1800s, Halloween was a full-fledged holiday in America. An American fascination with witches that dates to before the Salem witch trials in New England later added witches to the event. That holiday has now been embraced by neo-pagans and Wiccans. The Harry Potter sagas, the Twilight series, the Buffy the Vampire slayer shows and movies only added to this American fascination with witchcraft, sorcerers, demons, and the campy occult.
According to a recent survey by Instacart, 76% of Americans say that they like to celebrate Halloween. 25% say that Halloween is their favorite holiday. Approximately half (50%) plan to eat Halloween candy 46% plan to pass out Halloween candy to trick-or-treaters, 31% plan to dress up in a costume, and 23% of Americans plan to go trick-or-treating.
Most Americans do not view the holiday with any religious significance. It is an annual festival for parties, costumes, alcohol, over consumption of candy, tacky orange and black decorations, and horror movies.
Based on original scholarship by Father Augustine Thompson, O.P., who teaches religious studies at the University of Virginia.
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