Halloween

[JMJ_Pinoy]

Roman Catholicism Halloween

From Jessica Steinmetz,
Your Guide to Christianity - Catholicism.
catholicism.about.com/cs/holidays/a/halloween02.htm

A Roman Catholic Pope decided on the day Halloween would fall. Halloween is the day before the Catholic religion celebrates All Souls’Day. Catholics can and do celebrate Halloween. Halloween is also Guy Fawkes Day.

Many Catholics celebrate Halloween, but several aren’t sure if they should. Several believe that Halloween is evil and dangerous. However, the true origin of Halloween is both Christian and American.

A Pope decided the date of Halloween because All Saints Day is on November 1, Halloween is on the last day of October. The day before this feast was called “All Hallowe’en.” In 998, St. Odilo, who was a great abbot in a France monastery added a celebration on November 2. All Soul’s Day was a day filled with prayer for the souls who died. This feast spread through all of Europe.

For those in Hell, people banged on pots on All Hallowe’en to let the people in Hell know that they were not forgotten.

In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, thousands of people died from the “black death” in France. During this time, people started to wear costumes on All Soul’s Day. Since death was very apparent, Catholics reminded each other of their own mortality. There was an increase in Masses during All Soul’s Day. They also used art to express themselves.

People started to dress up in costumes to express the dance of death. For those who celebrated Halloween, they dressed up at night. Americans added Trick or Treating to Halloween.

During the 1500s - 1700s, English Catholics were treated very badly. They had no rights legally, couldn’t hold office, had heavy taxes, and it was a capitol offense to have Mass. Sometimes Catholics would fight back. They had a plot to destroy Protestant King James I and Parilament with gunpowder on November 5, 1605. Guy Fawkes was the guy in charge of the gunpowder, but he was captured and hung. This became a celebration in England known as Guy Fawkes Day. They wore masks, visited Catholics, and demand cake and beer. Hence, trick or treat.

Guy Fawkes Day arrived in the colonies with the English settlers. By then King James and Guy Fawkes were forgotten, however, trick or treating was fun and remained. Eventually, it was moved to October 31, the day of the Irish-French Dance of Death. In America, Halloween became a regular tradition in the 1800s. Europe doesn’t celebrate it even though much of the customs came from there.

 

[CatholicNerd]

JimG:

I love the idea of a Latin Requiem Mass on Halloween! Make it a Mass for all the deceased. But does anybody remember the the chants for the Requiem, and the Dies Irae? Does the organist? Does the priest have any black chasubles remaining? I still have my Laudate. That should help.

Yes to all in my parish I can’t imagine that people would not know the requiem chants (save for perhaps the Dies Irae, which I have attempted to memorize and I’ve failed miserably), but if they don’t, thankfully they are readily available on the web and probably in the priest’s missale in the back somewhere. Black fiddlebacks or gothic chasubles may be hard to come by, but the priest is permitted to wear purple now and every parish has at least one purple chasuble Knowing the Requiem is a handy thing… there’s gonna be one next Sunday night for all of the unborn (miscarriage, disease, abortion) celebrated by a really spiffy priest from our diocese. It’ll make it a very special Mass.

 

[legeorge]

We celebrate Halloween. I make my kids costumes every year. Last year they were the Cat in the Hat, thing 1, thing 2 and the fish in the bowl. (We won 2 costume contests!) The kids just see it as a chance to dress up and make believe they are someone else for a while. Not to mention the free candy! We have no mention of witches or ghosts in our house. We decorate the house for fall: pumpkins, leaves, horn of plenty, scarecrows, etc. We also celebrate the Saints and learn some stories about them. We also attend the Church services for All Saints Day. I guess I don’t see too much of a problem with it. Although, I can see how this might be an issue if I lived somewhere else where there is more of a pagan culture. We live in a small, rural, Christian community. Sort of isolated. So this is less of a problem for us.

 

[BryanW]

If you celebrate Halloween what exactly are you celebrating? Bobbing for apples, dressing up, and getting free candy are great. But why dress as the Devil or demons etc. What parent would let their kid dress as a murderer or rapist? The Devil and his ilk are worse than either.

 

[mercygate]

CatholicNerd:

If you want haunting, you don’t need ghosts, goblins, and demons… just chant the Dies Irae (we’ve got permission to do that, too! Yay!)

Yo, Nerd: slightly off topic – but do you need *permission *to sing the Dies Irae? I know it’s out of fashion but it is in *Worship III *and Adoremus (if I remember correctly.) From whom does one seek permission? The Dies Irae is one of the treasures of the Church.

 

[CatholicNerd]

mercygate:

Yo, Nerd: slightly off topic – but do you need permission to sing the Dies Irae? I know it’s out of fashion but it is in *Worship III *and Adoremus (if I remember correctly.) From whom does one seek permission? The Dies Irae is one of the treasures of the Church.

Actually, mercygate, I was wrong about that :whacky: For some reason, at the time I wrote the post I had it in my head that the sequence had been suppressed. For the life of me I dunno why I would have thought that. lol Sorry about any confusion that I might have caused. Instead of a spellchecker they need a Canon Law/Roman Missal/GIRM checker. lol Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.