Halloween Making Way for "White Feast"

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I’ll write it on the back of the Holy Picture for their parents then. But there is no way I would give sweets or anything to acknowledge or condone what is almost a religious celebration that is pagan in origin and has hijacked a Feast Day.

Just remember that while those innocent “kiddies” are roaming the streets in costumes, there are Satanists who wll be celebrating by desecrating stolen consecrated Hosts in a Black Mass.

But hey, it’s all innocent fun for the kiddies, isn’t it? Just as Christmas is all about Santa and receiving presents, and Easter is the Easter Bunny and chocolate eggs.
 
Eileen_T said:
zenit.org/english/visualizza.phtml?sid=97230

Reclaiming Halloween.

This Halloween I am going to be prepared with Holy Pictures to give with the sweets and explain that it is really a Catholic Feast honouring All the Saints.
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YOu will still be giving sweets though, won’t you? Your effort will be much more appreciate if the kids get some good candy from you, also.

Could you find holy pictures that wouldn’t be offensive to nonCatholic Parents?

By the way, the holiest day to a Satanist, is his own birthday, so Halloween isn’t as major a holiday for real Satanist as people imagine.
 
Eileen_T said:
I’ll write it on the back of the Holy Picture for their parents then. But there is no way I would give sweets or anything to acknowledge or condone what is almost a religious celebration that is pagan in origin and has hijacked a Feast Day.

Just remember that while those innocent “kiddies” are roaming the streets in costumes, there are Satanists who wll be celebrating by desecrating stolen consecrated Hosts in a Black Mass.

But hey, it’s all innocent fun for the kiddies, isn’t it? Just as Christmas is all about Santa and receiving presents, and Easter is the Easter Bunny and chocolate eggs.
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Oh please :rolleyes: Halloween is not a religious celebration…and what feast day falls on 10/31?
 
deb1 said:
YOu will still be giving sweets though, won’t you? Your effort will be much more appreciate if the kids get some good candy from you, also.

Could you find holy pictures that wouldn’t be offensive to nonCatholic Parents?

By the way, the holiest day to a Satanist, is his own birthday, so Halloween isn’t as major a holiday for real Satanist as people imagine.
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Offend away. We must reject political correctness; a desire to avoid offending others, particularly those who seek to be offended.
 
Karin said:
Oh please :rolleyes: Halloween is not a religious celebration…and what feast day falls on 10/31?
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Hallowe’en literally means the eve (vigil) of All Hallows Day (the feast of All Saints) - which indeed falls on the day after (November 1). So it is not only as religious as Christmas Eve or the vigil of Easter, but absolutely Catholic 👍
 
While 11/1 (All Saints Day) is a Day of Obligation 10/31 is not…and yes there is a Vigil Mass on 10/31 for All Saints Day which is not a mandatory Mass unless you can not get to Church on 11/1.:)…

*In addition to Sunday, the days to be observed as holy days of obligation in the Latin Rite dioceses of the United States of America, in conformity with canon 1246, are as follows: *
*January 1, the solemnity of Mary, Mother of God;
Thursday of the Sixth Week of Easter, the solemnity of the Ascension;
August 15, the solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary;
November 1, the solemnity of All Saints;
December 8, the solemnity of the Immaculate Conception;
December 25, the solemnity of the Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ. *
Whenever January 1, the solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, or August 15, the solemnity of the Assumption, or November 1, the solemnity of All Saints, falls on a Saturday or on a Monday, the precept to attend Mass is abrogated.
nccbuscc.org/liturgy/q&a/general/obligation.shtml
 
rpp said:
Offend away. We must reject political correctness; a desire to avoid offending others, particularly those who seek to be offended.
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Pictures of the children at Fatima kneeling before the BVM.👍
 
Eileen_T said:
Pictures of the children at Fatima kneeling before the BVM.👍
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If your goal is to convert others to Catholicism then this will probably have the opposite effect. I can just see the extreme fundamentalist parent waving this at his/her child as proof that Catholics are not Christian.“See, they worship, Mary!” And the poor, naive child will simply accept what he/she is told and might not return to you with questions and forever believe a false myth about Catholics.😦

If you want to drop religious items into children’s bags, why not drop tracts explaining that Halloween has a Catholic origin. If it has cartoons, it would get read.

Regardless of what you put in the bags, wrap it around candy, so that the child will remember that they got the best candy at the Catholic lady’s house.🙂
 
You have convinced me, I am not even going to answer the door at all.
 
Eileen_T said:
I’ll write it on the back of the Holy Picture for their parents then. But there is no way I would give sweets or anything to acknowledge or condone what is almost a religious celebration that is pagan in origin and has hijacked a Feast Day.

Just remember that while those innocent “kiddies” are roaming the streets in costumes, there are Satanists who wll be celebrating by desecrating stolen consecrated Hosts in a Black Mass.

But hey, it’s all innocent fun for the kiddies, isn’t it? Just as Christmas is all about Santa and receiving presents, and Easter is the Easter Bunny and chocolate eggs.
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Actually, if I recall correctly, wasn’t it originally a pagan holiday that was hijacked by Christians (like Christmas) so is it that awful for it to be hijacked back?

Besides, I don’t think most of the little gremlins out and about looking for sweets are thinking about the religious aspects of it all. I think their looking for the goodies. I like to think of it as a holiday showing the generosity of people. It’s one of the few times of the year where people stand or sit outside on their porches just to make sure none of the kiddies is in danger (or getting up to unacceptable hijinks). And the candy is a low price for the entertainment of seeing the originality of some of the costumes.

I don’t know any Satanists. I, however, do know a lot of Wiccans and they celebrate a high holy day on Halloween (Samhain). No black masses there though.
 
a_cermak said:
Actually, if I recall correctly, wasn’t it originally a pagan holiday that was hijacked by Christians (like Christmas) so is it that awful for it to be hijacked back?

Besides, I don’t think most of the little gremlins out and about looking for sweets are thinking about the religious aspects of it all. I think their looking for the goodies. I like to think of it as a holiday showing the generosity of people. It’s one of the few times of the year where people stand or sit outside on their porches just to make sure none of the kiddies is in danger (or getting up to unacceptable hijinks). And the candy is a low price for the entertainment of seeing the originality of some of the costumes.

I don’t know any Satanists. I, however, do know a lot of Wiccans and they celebrate a high holy day on Halloween (Samhain). No black masses there though.
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What I have read is that a lot of what people believe about Halloween is actually urbane legends. We have no idea how the ancient Celtic people celebrated their end of year festival-Samhein.

Much of the practice of Wicca has been invented in modern times.

I agree with you that Halloween is a wonderful time for kids to have and for grownups to practice generosity and to meet your neighbors.
 
deb1 said:
What I have read is that a lot of what people believe about Halloween is actually urbane legends. We have no idea how the ancient Celtic people celebrated their end of year festival-Samhein.

Much of the practice of Wicca has been invented in modern times.

I agree with you that Halloween is a wonderful time for kids to have and for grownups to practice generosity and to meet your neighbors.
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The Wiccans I know actually make fun of the ones who insist they are practising the same faith as the ancient Celtics. They call them Wiccan Fundamentalists. Nevertheless, Samhain is a major festival in their liturgical year.

I don’t think it’s argued that there was a Harvest Festival in the fall that had elements of our modern Halloween. And that the Church hijacked (as called the original poster) the festival in order to give it a Christian significance. The Church also gave it its fixed date of Oct 31 as the Celts (and just about all ancient civs) had a lunar based calendar, so the day would have wandered from year to year. Nothing wrong with the Church blessing a pagan holiday and giving it new meaning, God can bless whatever He wants. But criticizing the pagans for hijacking it back does seem a little inconsistent.

What I find fascinating is the Dia de la Muerte (Day of the Dead) that’s celebrated by the Mexicans on Nov 2. It’s also a holiday filled with skeletons and the dead and such (though more family based as it’s a day to honor your family’s dead).
 
Ooops, I mean Celts (a set of tribes of people), not Celtics (a poor basketball team in Boston).
 
a_cermak said:
Samhain is a major festival in their liturgical year.
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They have a “liturgical year” now, too? :rolleyes:
What I find fascinating is the Dia de la Muerte (Day of the Dead) that’s celebrated by the Mexicans on Nov 2. It’s also a holiday filled with skeletons and the dead and such (though more family based as it’s a day to honor your family’s dead).
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Yes, but November 2 is actually All Souls Day - which is actually a day to remember the dead of your family.

We have a Book of the Dead at our parish, and of course we have Mass in their honour, but we don’t have a secondary Hallowe’en on that day, because it would be redundant, I think. But I don’t think they have Hallowe’en in Mexico.
 
jmcrae said:
They have a “liturgical year” now, too? :rolleyes:
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I don’t know if they would characterize it as that, but when they explain that they have 8 major feasts and 8 minor feasts and x many Sabbaths and … It begins to sound like a liturgical calendar to me.
 
a_cermak said:
The Wiccans I know actually make fun of the ones who insist they are practising the same faith as the ancient Celtics. They call them Wiccan Fundamentalists. Nevertheless, Samhain is a major festival in their liturgical year.

I don’t think it’s argued that there was a Harvest Festival in the fall that had elements of our modern Halloween. And that the Church hijacked (as called the original poster) the festival in order to give it a Christian significance. The Church also gave it its fixed date of Oct 31 as the Celts (and just about all ancient civs) had a lunar based calendar, so the day would have wandered from year to year. Nothing wrong with the Church blessing a pagan holiday and giving it new meaning, God can bless whatever He wants. But criticizing the pagans for hijacking it back does seem a little inconsistent.

What I find fascinating is the Dia de la Muerte (Day of the Dead) that’s celebrated by the Mexicans on Nov 2. It’s also a holiday filled with skeletons and the dead and such (though more family based as it’s a day to honor your family’s dead).
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I am glad that modern Wiccans no longer believe that their religion is the same as the ancient Celts. But there are many extreme fundamentalist Christians who do insists that a wide range of insane myths about Halloween are true. I live in the south, so I come across these people often.😦

Many cultures have a day for the dead, including our own. What is Memorial Day but a day for the dead?

As far as Samhein, from what I have read, archaeologist do not know exactly how the Celts practiced their end of summer celebration. All they know is that the Celts did have an end of summer celebration and, from what I read, it probably had something to do with their departed loved ones. We really don’t know the specifics of how Samhein was celebrated.

I agree with you that the Church’s ability to take a pagan cultures traditions and make them Christian is wonderful and brilliant. It also shows a respect for other cultures and traditions. But that doesn’t change the fact that many of the practices of Halloween-I’m not saying all, though- have a Catholic origin not a pagan one.

Halloween is a great holiday. We get to practice generosity. It allows a day for children to be simply kids and experience the wonder of friendly adults giving them candy for no reason except that they like kids. We adults get to have a free activity with our kids and get to meet our neighbors. Plus kids can laugh at what frighten them by putting on scary costumes.

By the way one of the reasons that the Puritans didn’t celebrate either Halloween or Christmas was because these holidays were too Catholic.

I might be biased. Halloween is my birthday and I LOVE this day. It is my favorite day of the year.
 
To those who wish to use Halloween to plug your Catholic faith, you are not alone:
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As ‘goblins’ knock, evangelicals answer the door**
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Bruce Watters used to simply hand out candy on Halloween, just like his neighbors in St. Petersburg, Fla., until he decided the holiday’s ghoulishness really didn’t jibe with his Christian beliefs.
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But rather than skip the neighborhood ritual, he’s put a Christian stamp on it. For the third year in a row, kids will leave his porch with a piece of candy, plus a religious tract - a concise, colorful handout telling how to attain salvation through Jesus Christ.
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Link to article
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What if those tracts are anti-Catholic tracts? Now I’m imagining a Halloween marked by proselytizing. Everybody would be out to prove a sectarian point and the innocent fun (which is what the overwhelming majority of participants is out to have) would be thrown out the window. Am I being overly paranoid?
 
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