Category Archives: Holiday

Halloween is Catholic

31 Friday Oct 2014

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A wonderful and historical article from Catholic Culture showing Halloween to be part of “a triduum of celebration, Halloween, All Saints Day and All Souls Day…the three days celebrate the Communion of Saints.”

An excerpt.

Ready or not, Halloween is Friday. This is the second highest grossing commercial holiday in America, and also one of the most controversial. Fundamental Christians believe it should be completely rejected because it has roots as a pagan celebration, and some Catholics feel a need to change the focus completely away from secular celebrations.

Halloween is not a separate feast on the Church’s liturgical calendar, but it does mark the vigil of All Saints’ Day. Halloween is part and parcel of our Catholic heritage. Halloween has both religious and secular traditions that we can embrace. We can find a balance to live in this world and celebrate Halloween like a Catholic.

What Are the Origins of Halloween?

I find it interesting that even tracing the origins of Halloween is marked with controversy. Throughout history Catholics have “baptized” many pagan customs, but neo-pagans try to rewrite history to claim that nearly every Christian celebration or custom has pagan origins, claiming that Halloween is entirely based on Celt or Druid origins. While we can find a few “baptized” customs in Halloween, Catholics can proudly say that Halloween is a Catholic holiday.

The name “Halloween” comes from the older English, where saints or holy people were called “hallowed.” All Saints Day was “All Hallows’ Day” or “Hallowmas,” and the evening, or “e’en” before the feast became popularly known as “All Hallows’ Eve” or abbreviated, “Hallowe’en” or our modern “Halloween.”

The origin of the solemnity of All Saints began in the early centuries in Church, originally designated as the Feast of All Martyrs (emphasis mine):

May 13 became the established day, inasmuch as the pope accepted a pagan temple, the Pantheon (unused for over 100 years), as a gift from Emperor Phocas and on May 13, 609 consecrated it as a Christian church in honor of the Virgin Mary and all the martyrs. On this day of consecration the pope had 28 wagonloads of martyrs’ bones brought to the church from the catacombs (Adolf Adam, The Liturgical Year, pp. 228-229).

By 840 the feast title changed to “All Saints” to include not only martyrs, but all the saints in heaven. England and Ireland celebrated this feast on November 1st and by 844, Pope Gregory IV transferred the feast of All Saints to November 1st in the General Roman Calendar, timing it around the fall harvest to be able to provide food for the pilgrims to Rome.

It was not until 1484 that the first of November became holyday of obligation with a separate vigil and an eight-day period or octave to celebrate the feast. Nearly 500 years later, in 1955, the octave and vigil of All Saints were removed, but since the feast of All Saints is a solemnity, the evening vigil begins the observance of the feast:

The liturgical day runs from midnight to midnight, but the observance of Sunday and solemnities begins with the evening of the preceding day….

Solemnities are counted as the principal days in the calendar and their observance begins with evening prayer of the preceding day. Some also have their own vigil Mass for use when Mass is celebrated in the evening of the preceding day (The General Norms for the Liturgical Year and the Calendar, 3, 11).

Retrieved October 31, 2014 from http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/liturgicalyear/blog/index.cfm?id=163

Holidays!

19 Wednesday Dec 2012

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We will be taking the next couple of weeks off to enjoy Christmas & New Years and will resume blogging on Thursday January 3, 2013.

Our wish is that you and yours may have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Wall Street Journal’s Christmas Editorial

“In Hoc Anno Domini

“Our traditional Christmas editorial.

“When Saul of Tarsus set out on his journey to Damascus, the whole of the known world lay in bondage. There was one state, and it was Rome. There was one master for it all, and he was Tiberius Caesar.

“Everywhere there was civil order, for the arm of the Roman law was long. Everywhere there was stability, in government and in society, for the centurions saw that it was so.

“But everywhere there was something else, too. There was oppression—for those who were not the friends of Tiberius Caesar. There was the tax gatherer to take the grain from the fields and the flax from the spindle to feed the legions or to fill the hungry treasury from which divine Caesar gave largess to the people. There was the impressor to find recruits for the circuses. There were executioners to quiet those whom the Emperor proscribed. What was a man for but to serve Caesar?

“There was the persecution of men who dared think differently, who heard strange voices or read strange manuscripts. There was enslavement of men whose tribes came not from Rome, disdain for those who did not have the familiar visage. And most of all, there was everywhere a contempt for human life. What, to the strong, was one man more or less in a crowded world?

“Then, of a sudden, there was a light in the world, and a man from Galilee saying, Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s and unto God the things that are God’s.

“And the voice from Galilee, which would defy Caesar, offered a new Kingdom in which each man could walk upright and bow to none but his God. Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. And he sent this gospel of the Kingdom of Man into the uttermost ends of the earth.

“So the light came into the world and the men who lived in darkness were afraid, and they tried to lower a curtain so that man would still believe salvation lay with the leaders.

“But it came to pass for a while in diverse places that the truth did set man free, although the men of darkness were offended and they tried to put out the light. The voice said, Haste ye. Walk while you have the light, lest darkness come upon you, for he that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth.

“Along the road to Damascus the light shone brightly. But afterward Paul of Tarsus, too, was sore afraid. He feared that other Caesars, other prophets, might one day persuade men that man was nothing save a servant unto them, that men might yield up their birthright from God for pottage and walk no more in freedom.

“Then might it come to pass that darkness would settle again over the lands and there would be a burning of books and men would think only of what they should eat and what they should wear, and would give heed only to new Caesars and to false prophets. Then might it come to pass that men would not look upward to see even a winter’s star in the East, and once more, there would be no light at all in the darkness.

“And so Paul, the apostle of the Son of Man, spoke to his brethren, the Galatians, the words he would have us remember afterward in each of the years of his Lord:

“Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.”

This editorial was written in 1949 by the late Vermont Roysterand has been published annually since.