Catholic Halloween?

[SpeakKindly]

What are some good ways to celebrate Halloween as a Catholic family, specifically a newly married couple with no children yet?

 

[turtle18]

Normally, I would say go to a Vigil Mass for All Saints Day-but since it is not a Holy Day of Obligation this year you may have trouble finding a vigil Mass.

 

[jlc2k2]

What are some good ways to celebrate Halloween as a Catholic family, specifically a newly married couple with no children yet?

Do you have nieces or nephews or friends with kids? Before we had kids, we went to my ILs house to see my nieces off to trick or treating.

I would also think that a hay ride would be a lovely way to spend the evening if you can find one in your area.

 

[Allegra]

Our street really goes all out for Halloween. We spend it eating chilli and roasting marshmellows around a firepit in the driveway. I try to decorate the yard for the neighborhood kids. Basically, it turns into a block party. I don’t really do anything specifically Catholic, other then my normal Catholic activities.

 

[vallancec]

Dress up like saints

 

[z_0101]

Dress up like saints

Also, purchase some prayer cards for each Saint to pass out!
Along with the candy I usually put a prayer card for St. Albert and a card with the church Mass times for the three local parishes. Got the idea from the local protestant church that passed out anti-Catholic tracts one year. The look on their face the next year when I gave them a Lighthouse CD An Invitation to Consider the Catholic Faith worth every dollar I put in the goodwill box!

We’re

 

[Kelfa28]

We have a lot of kids in our neighborhood that come by.

We don’t do anything too special. I get a bowl of Twix, hand out candy and have a quiet evening.

We haven’t taken the kids out Trick-or-Treating just yet. This year we might do a few houses. Last year I was nearly 9 months pregnant with my second and my husband had to work so we made it a quiet evening.

We don’t go all out for it. When the kids start at the Parish school they celebrate All Saint’s Day and have the kids dress as different saints. I have a feeling that I will be putting together 4 separate costumes for 2 kids. One saint and one halloween.

 

[Cricket2]

Focus on the Catholic Holy Days. Keep in mind that “Halloween” is actually on “All Souls Day”, when we pray for and remember the dead. The following day is All Saints Day. Avoid the decorations for Halloween, or weird costumes. Instead go to Mass on those days, and if possible do something that helps others learn about past Catholic Saints.

I try to do this, versus getting all hyped up with the trick or treating and horror movies. My sister likes to do the trick or treat stuff, but I at least try to include decorations that are fun, like cute animals, angels, or actual Saints. When living on my own I don’t do any of it. Just go to Mass.

 

[UbiCaritas]

Depends on what you enjoy!

My favorite Halloweens while not married were spent with friends. We’d turn their porch into a miniature haunted house (so. much. fun.) complete with fog machine and sound effects, get dressed up (yes, even the dog!), and all chip in a little cash for soda, pizza, and treats. We’d watch horror movies, especially really cheesy ones, and carve jack-o-lanterns.

I’ll be incorporating a lot of this into our Halloweens now that DD is here, though methinks the horror movies will wait until she’s in bed for obvious reasons…

ETA: This was all good, clean fun, and if our schedules permitted it I’d usually sleep over at one of their houses and we’d all go to Mass in the morning for All Saints’ Day. (We’d get to Mass however we could the next day, but going together if we could was more enjoyable.) Being Catholic doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy dressing up and having fun!

 

[ialsop]

All Souls Day was put near a pagan holiday to take focus away from the pagan holiday and towards the holy souls and saints. Unfortunately that failed and the opposite happened.
Now, Halloween with trick or treating, passing out candy, and dressing up is not really sinful at all. Just dont focus on it. That is not the focus of these days. The focus is the holy souls in purgatory, and saints in heaven. Pray a litany of saints, go to mass, and pray a divine mercy chaplet or a rosary for the souls in purgatory. Pray for your relatives. And I LOVE the idea of giving out prayer cards, CDs, catholic stuff.

However…what IS sinful…would be covering your house in a bunch of stuff that, if you really think about it, is just an expression of the demonic and a personification of death.Why do we do that? Why glorifyand show people stuff from HELL? DO NOT decorate your house to be “haunted” or cover it in skeletons, ghosts, demons, devils, ect. Decorate, if you wish, with fall related things and harvest style decor.

AND whatever you do, do NOT do anything with ouiji boards, occult, summoning ghosts, new age ghost hunts, or ghost hunts in general, ect. Those things are MORTAL sins and extremley dangerous. they will make the demons and haunted houses TRULY haunted. So dont.

Please dont take this the wrong way. i dont think you said anything sinful at all…you seem like a good Catholic person. Im just warning you. I just do not understand how some people take a holiday to celebrate Heaven and pray for Purgatory, and glorify HELL. Makes no sense.
Well, God Bless,
Isaac

 

[z_0101]

“Halloween” is actually on “All Souls Day”,

A minor correction please,
All Hallow’s Day Eve == All Saint’s Day Eve ==> corrupted to Halloween.
Not All Souls Day.

From the Link I’m about to post about the pagan version… yikes the misinfo that’s out there…

“Halloween” is a name that means nothing by itself. It is a contraction of “All Hallows Eve,” and it designates the vigil of All Hallows Day, more commonly known today as All Saints Day. (“Hallow,” as a noun, is an old English word for saint. As a verb, it means to make something holy or to honor it as holy.) All Saints Day, November 1, is a Holy Day of Obligation, and both the feast and the vigil have been celebrated since the early eighth century, when they were instituted by Pope Gregory III in Rome. (A century later, they were extended to the Church at large by Pope Gregory IV.)

 

[ialsop]

A minor correction please,
All Hallow’s Day Eve == All Saint’s Day Eve ==> corrupted to Halloween.
Not All Souls Day.

From the Link I’m about to post about the pagan version… yikes the misinfo that’s out there…

“Halloween” is a name that means nothing by itself. It is a contraction of “All Hallows Eve,” and it designates the vigil of All Hallows Day, more commonly known today as All Saints Day. (“Hallow,” as a noun, is an old English word for saint. As a verb, it means to make something holy or to honor it as holy.) All Saints Day, November 1, is a Holy Day of Obligation, and both the feast and the vigil have been celebrated since the early eighth century, when they were instituted by Pope Gregory III in Rome. (A century later, they were extended to the Church at large by Pope Gregory IV.)

True. Not sure what the pagan holiday was really called. But for all practical purposes, Halloween often refers to the expression of the odd blend of pop culture, modern western world, and ancient pagan ritual. All the Catholic stuff sort of got suoved to the next day, unfourtunetly. We need to spiritually and culturally retake October 31 for Christ.

 

[UbiCaritas]

All Souls Day was put near a pagan holiday to take focus away from the pagan holiday and towards the holy souls and saints. Unfortunately that failed and the opposite happened.
Now, Halloween with trick or treating, passing out candy, and dressing up is not really sinful at all. Just dont focus on it. That is not the focus of these days. The focus is the holy souls in purgatory, and saints in heaven. Pray a litany of saints, go to mass, and pray a divine mercy chaplet or a rosary for the souls in purgatory. Pray for your relatives. And I LOVE the idea of giving out prayer cards, CDs, catholic stuff.

However…what IS sinful…would be covering your house in a bunch of stuff that, if you really think about it, is just an expression of the demonic and a personification of death.Why do we do that? Why glorifyand show people stuff from HELL? DO NOT decorate your house to be “haunted” or cover it in skeletons, ghosts, demons, devils, ect. Decorate, if you wish, with fall related things and harvest style decor.

AND whatever you do, do NOT do anything with ouiji boards, occult, summoning ghosts, new age ghost hunts, or ghost hunts in general, ect. Those things are MORTAL sins and extremley dangerous. they will make the demons and haunted houses TRULY haunted. So dont.

Please dont take this the wrong way. i dont think you said anything sinful at all…you seem like a good Catholic person. Im just warning you. I just do not understand how some people take a holiday to celebrate Heaven and pray for Purgatory, and glorify HELL. Makes no sense.
Well, God Bless,
Isaac

It’s a bit of a stretch to imply that one minute it’s dressing up and eating pizza and the next it’s doing something so patently stupid as messing around with the supernatural via Ouija boards and the like. Demons are for an exorcist to deal with, not me; I’ll live a perfectly happy life if I never come in contact with one, thankyouverymuch.

At the same time, there is nothing wrong with enjoying a good scare. Some do, some don’t. My husband isn’t big on Halloween, but he tolerates my mania for a single day.

Fun isn’t sinful. If we’re dressing up as witches and sacrificing the family pets in the backyard on Halloween, Houston, we have a problem. If we’re dressing up in fun and giving ourselves and the neighborhood kids a good time by making our front porch spooky-but-not-too-spooky (fog machine, spiderwebs, jack-o-lanterns, and a dog dressed up as a princess ) while noshing on pizza and soft drinks, I hardly think that’s wrong.

If you want to spend your Halloween attending Mass and saying rosaries, go for it! Nothing wrong with it. However, we aren’t required to. I’ll give the neighbor kids a good, fun time by dressing up the porch (I’m thinking dungeon-themed this year, yay!), handing out candy, and then will see them at Mass the next day.

Skeletons aren’t “from hell.” If anything, they’re a reminder of our own mortality–not a bad thing, methinks. In fact, if you think about it, one could use the fun of Halloween to reflect on our mortality and the fact that there is such a thing as evil out there…at the same time, of course, as one gets one’s Snickers fix and laughs at very hokey ghost stories and horror movies.

(A side note: we never went for the realistic demonic-possession-type movies; I tend to agree with exorcists who say that the best thing the average person can do when it comes to demonology is to stay far away from it. But…“Ghostbusters?” “The Addams Family?” “The Return of the Lost Skeleton of Cadavera?” If someone finds themselves open to possession after watching those, I’d lay very good money down that they were up to something besides watching goofy horror movies.)

 

[z_0101]

All Souls Day was put near a pagan holiday to take focus away from the pagan holiday and towards the holy souls and saints. Unfortunately that failed and the opposite happened.

I’m going to post some quotes from here, as frankly, it will save me time looking up my old research paper (from when I was an Agnostic - NOT Catholic) and pulling resources from the web:
ialsop I also think you’ll find the whole article to be an interesting read:

1. catholicism.about.com/od/thecatholicfamily/p/Halloween.htm

What you state is a common protestant stance against the existence of Halloween. The origin of the stance was in attempt to demonize the Catholic Church for establishing All Saint’s Day.
The Pagan Origins of Halloween
Despite concerns among some Catholics and other Christians in recent years about the “pagan origins” of Halloween, there really are none. The first attempts to show some connection between the vigil of All Saints and the Celtic harvest festival of Samhain came over a thousand years after All Saints Day became a universal feast, and there’s no evidence whatsoever that Gregory III or Gregory IV was even aware of Samhain.

In fact, you will often find similar arguments against Christmas and Christmas Trees, Advent Wreaths, Easter eggs and Bunnies.

ialsop I’d also suggest the following, neithe specifically deal with halloween; however, they do deal with paganization of the Catholic holidays:
is catholicism pagan
and
can dogma develop

Now, Halloween with trick or treating, passing out candy, and dressing up is not really sinful at all. Just dont focus on it. That is not the focus of these days.

Nailed there!
Unfourtunately for my kids… it seems to be the candy, we can only do so much

And I LOVE the idea of giving out prayer cards, CDs, catholic stuff.

Thank You! I know it’s not an original thought of mine; however, I’d like to think it was at least inspired by the Holy Spirit.

However…what IS sinful…would be covering your house in a bunch of stuff that, if you really think about it, is just an expression of the demonic and a personification of death.

Or is it only in fun.
IMHO, I think we over think things sometimes.
The Parish Council and our Pastor have been trying to come up with something that speaks Catholic and yet has the Halloween feel. Our thought, An All Saints Haunted House! Think about it… plenty of the gruesome in many Saint’s martyrdom and a way to bring their story alive for the teens and kids.

Decorate, if you wish, with fall related things and harvest style decor.

THANK YOU - An excellent alternative decorating suggestion and one I have done in very creative ways where I live

ouiji boards, occult, summoning ghosts, new age ghost hunts, or ghost hunts in general, ect.

Absolutely Correct!
Besides, this is expressly forbidden in the CCC 2115 thru 2117 not just at Halloween, but at all times:
Vatican: CCC 2116

2116 All forms of divination are to be rejected: recourse to Satan or demons, conjuring up the dead or other practices falsely supposed to “unveil” the future.48 Consulting horoscopes, astrology, palm reading, interpretation of omens and lots, the phenomena of clairvoyance, and recourse to mediums all conceal a desire for power over time, history, and, in the last analysis, other human beings, as well as a wish to conciliate hidden powers. They contradict the honor, respect, and loving fear that we owe to God alone.

Please dont take this the wrong way. i dont think you said anything sinful at all…you seem like a good Catholic person. Im just warning you. I just do not understand how some people take a holiday to celebrate Heaven and pray for Purgatory, and glorify HELL. Makes no sense.
Well, God Bless,
Isaac

Isaac, for me no offense, I hope you don’t take offense either. We can certainly agree to disagree on a topic and stay neighbors in good standing (or at least that is what I would hope )

IMHO, it depends on one’s personal interpretation of the actions of others.
Certainly there are those that will view this as a demonic day and glorify it as such, and others at the other end that find this to be nothing but good clean fun.
I choose to see the latter, and this is a time for theatrics and celebrating the Saints and this is what I choose to see in others/

OK, it’s the labor day thing and the potato salad is setting at the park growing germs and being sneezed in and I have to go this year as I don’t work, no vacations to cover!

Peace be with you

 

[ialsop]

It’s a bit of a stretch to imply that one minute it’s dressing up and eating pizza and the next it’s doing something so patently stupid as messing around with the supernatural via Ouija boards and the like. Demons are for an exorcist to deal with, not me; I’ll live a perfectly happy life if I never come in contact with one, thankyouverymuch.

At the same time, there is nothing wrong with enjoying a good scare. Some do, some don’t. My husband isn’t big on Halloween, but he tolerates my mania for a single day.

Fun isn’t sinful. If we’re dressing up as witches and sacrificing the family pets in the backyard on Halloween, Houston, we have a problem. If we’re dressing up in fun and giving ourselves and the neighborhood kids a good time by making our front porch spooky-but-not-too-spooky (fog machine, spiderwebs, jack-o-lanterns, and a dog dressed up as a princess ) while noshing on pizza and soft drinks, I hardly think that’s wrong.

If you want to spend your Halloween attending Mass and saying rosaries, go for it! Nothing wrong with it. However, we aren’t required to. I’ll give the neighbor kids a good, fun time by dressing up the porch (I’m thinking dungeon-themed this year, yay!), handing out candy, and then will see them at Mass the next day.

Skeletons aren’t “from hell.” If anything, they’re a reminder of our own mortality–not a bad thing, methinks. In fact, if you think about it, one could use the fun of Halloween to reflect on our mortality and the fact that there is such a thing as evil out there…at the same time, of course, as one gets one’s Snickers fix and laughs at very hokey ghost stories and horror movies.

(A side note: we never went for the realistic demonic-possession-type movies; I tend to agree with exorcists who say that the best thing the average person can do when it comes to demonology is to stay far away from it. But…“Ghostbusters?” “The Addams Family?” “The Return of the Lost Skeleton of Cadavera?” If someone finds themselves open to possession after watching those, I’d lay very good money down that they were up to something besides watching goofy horror movies.)

Yup, yup, yup, agree with you. And I am not against little silly skeletons and cobwebs and such, but what I am against is, well, on my neighborhood we have houses that go all out with black robed things wearing pentagrams and carrying bloody knives coming up from graves, and those graves have pentagrams, and one of my neighbors put a HUGE upside down crucifix, no not st peters cross, but a true upside down crucifix on their garage door. I saw last haloweeen a little toddler dressed in black robes wearing a pentagram neckalace. Someting seriously wrong with my neighborhood, methinks.

 

[Allegra]

While some people may take Halloween as an opportunity to delve into the occult and demonic, there is certainly room for reasonable people to decorate, celebrate, dress-up, and eat candy without going there. My daughter is going as an owl, however, I wouldn’t have a problem with a skeleton or zombie or making my yard look like a graveyard or anything like that. Macabre doesn’t neccesarily equal demonic, in my opinion. I can understand discouraging ones own children from dressing like a witch because of not wanting to encourage occult practices. However, I would give others some slack because I think most people in American culture equate “witch” with “fantasy-character-with-magic-powers” rather than “demonic-influenced-devil-worshiper”.

 

[ialsop]

I’m going to post some quotes from here, as frankly, it will save me time looking up my old research paper (from when I was an Agnostic - NOT Catholic) and pulling resources from the web:
ialsop I also think you’ll find the whole article to be an interesting read:

1. catholicism.about.com/od/thecatholicfamily/p/Halloween.htm

What you state is a common protestant stance against the existence of Halloween. The origin of the stance was in attempt to demonize the Catholic Church for establishing All Saint’s Day.
The Pagan Origins of Halloween
Despite concerns among some Catholics and other Christians in recent years about the “pagan origins” of Halloween, there really are none. The first attempts to show some connection between the vigil of All Saints and the Celtic harvest festival of Samhain came over a thousand years after All Saints Day became a universal feast, and there’s no evidence whatsoever that Gregory III or Gregory IV was even aware of Samhain.

In fact, you will often find similar arguments against Christmas and Christmas Trees, Advent Wreaths, Easter eggs and Bunnies.

ialsop I’d also suggest the following, neithe specifically deal with halloween; however, they do deal with paganization of the Catholic holidays:
is catholicism pagan
and
can dogma develop

Nailed there!
Unfourtunately for my kids… it seems to be the candy, we can only do so much

Thank You! I know it’s not an original thought of mine; however, I’d like to think it was at least inspired by the Holy Spirit.

Or is it only in fun.
IMHO, I think we over think things sometimes.
The Parish Council and our Pastor have been trying to come up with something that speaks Catholic and yet has the Halloween feel. Our thought, An All Saints Haunted House! Think about it… plenty of the gruesome in many Saint’s martyrdom and a way to bring their story alive for the teens and kids.

THANK YOU - An excellent alternative decorating suggestion and one I have done in very creative ways where I live

Absolutely Correct!
Besides, this is expressly forbidden in the CCC 2115 thru 2117 not just at Halloween, but at all times:
Vatican: CCC 2116

2116 All forms of divination are to be rejected: recourse to Satan or demons, conjuring up the dead or other practices falsely supposed to “unveil” the future.48 Consulting horoscopes, astrology, palm reading, interpretation of omens and lots, the phenomena of clairvoyance, and recourse to mediums all conceal a desire for power over time, history, and, in the last analysis, other human beings, as well as a wish to conciliate hidden powers. They contradict the honor, respect, and loving fear that we owe to God alone.

Isaac, for me no offense, I hope you don’t take offense either. We can certainly agree to disagree on a topic and stay neighbors in good standing (or at least that is what I would hope )

IMHO, it depends on one’s personal interpretation of the actions of others.
Certainly there are those that will view this as a demonic day and glorify it as such, and others at the other end that find this to be nothing but good clean fun.
I choose to see the latter, and this is a time for theatrics and celebrating the Saints and this is what I choose to see in others/

OK, it’s the labor day thing and the potato salad is setting at the park growing germs and being sneezed in and I have to go this year as I don’t work, no vacations to cover!

Peace be with you

Well I agree with 99 percent of what you said. im glad you take no offense, and neither do I. And if you want good clean fun, well, go for it. But just know that there IS a line you can cross, just see my other reply above to see what goes down on my street and you will know what I mean. I like your idea of gruesome saint houses. That sounds amusing, fun, scary, and very Catholicish. Now, The one thing I want to say is, All Souls Day and All Saints Day are pure holy days with no pagan orgins. But im wondering why they are so close to another holiday. Ancient Druids carved vegatables and collected food from houses by threat of “tricks”. It was all occult. BUT BUT BUT WAIT I am not saying that if you make jack o lanterns or trick or treat that you are occult or evil. It can certainly be clean fun. But I just personally dont find it very fun, seeing its orgins. But you are right, if you guys find it to be clean fun, you go for it! Have all the fn you want! well not too much. It is easy for me to tolerate anybody who partakes in Haloween because it is NOT a sin to do so. But because of the sinful origins, I personally do not. But that is IMHO.
Well God Bless!!!
Isaac

 

[ialsop]

While some people may take Halloween as an opportunity to delve into the occult and demonic, there is certainly room for reasonable people to decorate, celebrate, dress-up, and eat candy without going there. My daughter is going as an owl, however, I wouldn’t have a problem with a skeleton or zombie or making my yard look like a graveyard or anything like that. Macabre doesn’t neccesarily equal demonic, in my opinion. I can understand discouraging ones own children from dressing like a witch because of not wanting to encourage occult practices. However, I would give others some slack because I think most people in American culture equate “witch” with “fantasy-character-with-magic-powers” rather than “demonic-influenced-devil-worshiper”.

Fair enough, but I still say you should no very well that pentagrams on graves and jewlery and upside down crucifixes depicting a dead, defeated Christ and a rising ugly beast like creature is WAAAAYYYY out of line. Way too far. Graves? Fine. But no pentagrams.

 

[pianistclare]

I’d like to share what my parish does:

We have something called “Trunk or Treat”

We park our cars with the trunk facing the driving aisles, and we decorate the open trunks of the cars…always a theme to each car…some do a particular Saint…the childless adults of the kids themselves dress as a Saint…the interior of the trunk has a little display of the life story of the Saint and they give a holy card, or a pamphlet as well as a choice of candy to the children who are in costumes.
Other cars take a more "traditional approach, and are story characters or batman, Disney characters, things like that. We do stay away from overly scary themes, since there are always really small children.
In the meanwhile, the Knight of Columbus are busy cooking burgers and hot dogs, people bring a dish to share on the grounds, and the Deacons and the Pastor judge the costumes by age bracket, and regular costumes vs. Saints.
We start after the 11 AM Mass, and everyone goes home by 5 PM, and the kids are all tuckered out, and you know exactly where their candy came from…no wandering in the dark. We live in a semi-rural area, and the walk from house to house is sometimes hard for kids to manage. Having your mom drive you around for trick or treat kind of takes the fun out of it. The teens monitor some games, booths, and face painting.
This way, the kids run around the church grounds and interact with the parish family in a very safe way. The elders of the parish just love it.

 

[Allegra]

The school where I work has Trunk-or-Treat as well. It was started as a way for the school to celebrate Halloween outside of the school day. We used to have a huge parade after lunch with all the kids in costumes and then a party afterward but it caused a lot of problems. There were some kids who couldn’t afford costumes, so they had to spend time in the counselor’s office making them. There were some parents that constantly pushed the envelope of what was appropriate for school and there were some that blatantly disregarded the costume rules, which then put the principal in a situation of having to decide whether or not to punish a student for their parent’s moronic choices. Then one year, we had a tragedy where a child was killed getting off the bus, when part of her costume blew or got caught under the bus and the bus ran her over when she tried to retrive it. After that, the principal used that as an excuse to move the whole celebration to after school, so she didn’t have to deal with the nonsense. Trunk-or-Treat is a lot of fun and the kids get to see each other in their costumes and it’s a safe environment to celebrate. My old parish had a similar event the Friday before Halloween and inside the gym, they had a Saints and martyrs museum, with the 8th graders dressed up as Saints and telling the kids about how they died a glorious death for Christ.