Driving around town I’ve noticed the enthusiasm for Halloween. The decorations are elaborate and “scary.” Why such an interest in this holiday?
Halloween goes back to Celtic new year (Samhain, pronounced sow-win). On the eve of the new year, as darkness becomes pre-eminent, it was believed among the Celts (Irish, Britons, Scots, Gauls, Galatians) that the boundary between two worlds is lifted. Evil spirits are loose, and the dead visit their home when they were alive. The eve of the day was observed with costumes and bonfires.
The Christian holiday of All Hallows, that is All Saints Day, is the day after Halloween, the word being a contraction of All Hallows’ Eve. It represents a celebration of the saints of God who have passed on to heaven. The major saints found on the Church’s calendar are the focus. In many service books of liturgical churches you will find a list of the greatest saints of the church all of whom are remembered on this feast day of the Church. The Lutheran confessions assert that the saints function primarily for us as examples of the Christian life.
We thus have two holidays back to back, one pagan and the other Christian. Christmas is the same. A secular holiday competes with a religious one. The decorations and costumes of Halloween represent the pagan holiday. Halloween has become one of the favorite holidays of the year, though It does not match Thanksgiving and Christmas in popularity.
What do these observations indicate? Perhaps, they show that the nation has become more secularized which indeed it has. Why are adults enthusiastic about Halloween? It helps them enter into the mystery of the world. All of us need mystery in our lives. We need to apprehend a greater world beyond us. The problem is that Halloween focuses on death while All Saints celebrates life in Christ.
Now, don’t misunderstand me. I enjoy Halloween. It is a lot of fun in its modern form; but, I enjoy it with the realization that it shows our drift to a more secularized society and that All Saints is much more important than Halloween.
What should we do? We can enjoy the fun of Halloween while remembering the much greater importance of All Saints’ Day. We should not forget All Saints amidst the fun, costumes, and candy. All Saints and Christmas are examples of a trivialization of a pagan holiday. Originally celebrated on May 13 to mark the transformation of the Pantheon (a place of the gods) in Rome into a Christian Church ( 609 A.D), the feast was moved to November 1, years later, to celebrate the great saints of the Church and all Christians whom Paul calls saints. The saints abide in both heaven and on earth. The day to remember the dead, Halloween, became the eve of the day to celebrate new life in Christ. This is good news we are called to share.
I end with three verses of the hymn, “For All the Saints,” sung every All Saints Sunday or, for that matter, on All Saints Day itself that highlight my theme.
For all the who saints from their labors rest,
All who by faith before the world confessed,
Your name, O Jesus be forever blest.
Alleluia,! Alleluia!
Oh, may your soldiers, faithful, true, and bold,
Fight as the saints who nobly fought of old
And win with them the victor’s crown of gold.
Alleluia! Alleluia!
And when the strife is fierce, the warfare long,
Steals on the ear the distant triumph song,
And hearts are brave again and arms are strong.
Alleluia! Alleluia!
Text William How
Tune: Ralph Vaughan Williams
Michael G. Tavella
October 18, 2024
Saint Ignatius of Antioch, Martyr 115 A.D.
