Dear Father,
With Halloween coming up, what are your thoughts about that night? I’ve heard some say that it’s evil and that we shouldn’t participate. Is the Catholic Church against it?
– Val
Dear Val,
Most people don’t know that Halloween is a Catholic tradition. Some have tried to hijack it with their macabre celebration of death and other perverse practices. Fortunately, many Christians are reclaiming this sacred feast.
Halloween is a shortened form of All Hallows’ Eve. It refers to the eve before All Hallows Day, or All Saints Day, always on Nov. 1. The term “hallow” has Germanic roots and means holy. In the Our Father, we pray “hallowed be thy name,” denoted that God’s name is holy and we are honoring Him by saying that. Hallow was also used archaically to call someone a saint or a holy person.
On Halloween and on All Hallows Day, we honor all the Saints in heaven. This includes all the unknown saints as well as those who have been canonized by the Church. There are many men, women and children who are singing the praises of God and enjoying the beatific vision due to their complete devotion to God.
Canonized saints each have a special feast day on the Church’s calendar. The countless other saints, whose reputations may be unknown to us, are certainly known by God as His friends in heaven. Not everyone indeed dies a saint and so we will pray for them on Nov. 2, All Souls Day.
All Saints Day is a solemn feast in the Catholic Church, ranking as one of the highest celebrations on the Church’s calendar. We might liken it to Christmas Eve in the sense that we begin celebrating the night before.
Halloween and All Saints Day are two sides of the same coin. We celebrate the saints as our elder brothers and sisters. In the Collect, or Opening Prayer at Mass, we thank God for all their good works done for love of God and ask them to pray for us. In particular, we ask them to help us get to heaven and become saints.
Another central aspect of Halloween and All Saints Day is that we learn to long for the great feast in heaven (the eternal All Saints Day). We should make plans for the journey to heaven to be with our brothers and sisters who have “made it,” so to speak. This goal is the opposite of copping out on life here. It is, rather, the desire to finish the race and attain the prize, as St. Paul teaches (Phil 3:13-15).
This yearning is also found in the prayers at Mass on All Saints Day. The Eucharistic Preface, for instance, prays that “we eagerly hasten as pilgrims advancing by faith.” The Prayer over the Offerings asks for the grace that “we may experience (the saints’) concern for our salvation.” Think of the millions of saints in heaven, perhaps some of our own ancestors, who are longing for us to join them!
It’s scandalous to see any number of evil distortions of our Catholic and ancient feast day. What seemed like harmless depictions of ghouls and goblins several decades ago have become disgusting scenes of horror that celebrate death gruesomely, such as bodies hung in nooses from trees. Rather than celebrating the joy of heaven, people seek to shock and scare with so-called celebrations of hell.
Perhaps people are not aware of the embrace of the nether world and put up anti-Christian decorations because they think that’s what Halloween is all about. It’s one thing to illustrate death as a means to an end and quite another to make death an end in itself. Aren’t the times and culture in which we live already oversaturated with celebrations of killing?
Children dressing up in innocent costumes and trick-or-treating for candy is not an evil in itself. Many of us fondly recall our own childhood fascination with Halloween. Commercialization has robbed our feast day of its real meaning. It’s too bad that merchants find the exaltation of death more lucrative than life, eternal life.
So, rather than getting rid of Halloween, it’s time for us to reclaim the night. It’s a time for evangelization! Don’t turn off your porch light; rather, pass out good treats with a holy card. One Catholic website suggests praising children dressed as good characters but making light of those dressed as evil, especially those dressed as the devil.
Have fun parties with lots of food and candy. Have contests for the most creative jack o’ lantern. Dress up as good people, heroes and particularly as saints. Parish churches should sponsor safe festivities for young children, teens and even adults. Decorate your property with celebrations of life.
Questions about the sacraments should be sent to sacraments101@columbuscatholic.org.
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