THE CATHOLIC KNIGHT: So go ahead and dress those kids up and send them out for some fun. Of course if they're young you'll want to make sure they have some adult supervision. I would also recommend staying clear of anything that glorifies violence or the occult. That's the real problem with Halloween. Popular (Secular) culture has tried to ruin it, just like Christmas, by getting the focus onto anything other than what it's supposed to be about. By glorifying violence and the occult, Halloween has turned into something nasty. It doesn't have to be. For my kids, it's a night of dress up and make believe. My daughter usually goes as a princess or animal character. My son like superheros and Star Wars characters. One time my son asked if he could go as a skeleton, and I said "no" because Halloween is a celebration of life, and we don't want to use it to glorify death. So he decided to be Iron Man instead. When my daughter asked if she could dress up as a witch, again I said "no" because witchcraft (Wicca) is an occult religion, and we don't honor such things. She decided to go as a cat instead. Now maybe I'm being a bit strict here, but I think it's a fair adjustment. The kids get to celebrate the occasion, and the family doesn't have to worry about sending the wrong kind of message. These are just some personal family rules, but I imagine some variation of them would probably serve most Catholic families well. Some Catholic families might be okay with skeletons and witches, provided they are more cute than scary or occult.I am a bit mortified at the whole "scary" business during Halloween. For heaven's sake, this is supposed to be a childrens' celebration! Why on earth would you put something on that would scare the pants off them and then go out in public!?! Honestly parents, we need to do a better job on this. If your kid is going out looking like death on a stick, maybe it's time to have a sit down talk with him/her.
The name "Halloween" comes from Old English. It began with the English reference to All Saints Day (November 1st) on the Catholic calendar. The English referred to the All Saints as "All Hallows." You've heard the term before right? "Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name..." It's just another way of saying "holy" or "sanctified." All Saints Day (November 1st) is the day on the liturgical calendar when we honor all those who have died in Christ and now LIVE in heaven. It's a celebration of eternal life! The night before All Saints Day is All Saints Evening, but the English would refer to it as "All Hallows Even." Gradually, over time, the name morphed into "Hallow'even" and eventually into "Halloween." A similar thing happened with the word Christmas, which is an abbreviation of the term "Christ's Mass" in reference to liturgical celebrations for the "Feast of the Holy Nativity" observed on December 25th in the Western Christian calendar.
Now the historic customs surrounding Halloween come from various sources, and most of them involve immigrants to the United States and there cultural distinctions in dealing with the celebration of All Saints Day (Nov. 1st) and All Souls Day (Nov. 2nd). Most of what we do today comes from the Irish and the French. Trick-or-treat actually evolved from a sad prank English Protestants would play on English Catholics on Guy Fawkes Day (Nov. 5th). Americans simply bumped the date back to October 31st, and turned it into something fun for everyone. In recent years it has become in vogue for some Evangelical Christians to boycott Halloween. This is misguided and unnecessary. The day (and the night) belongs to us. It is our celebration - a Christian celebration - or at least it's supposed to be. Ancient Pagans knew nothing of Halloween or the modern customs we have associated with it. As Christians, it is not our place to curse the darkness, but rather shine a light. It's time to change the spirit of Halloween back to something more in tune with our Christian heritage. Instead of all the creepy stuff, decorate your home in cheerful and playful items that celebrate life. Typically in our home, we put out happy face jack-o-lanterns with cheerful scarecrows along with decor appropriate for harvest season.
Of course we understand that wherever you go, we're going to see somebody who's made a haunted house or some other macabre display. On that we just use our best judgment. If it looks ridiculously violent or occult, we just stay clear and move on to the next place. We don't scare our children with haunted houses or frighten them with scary movies. In fact, we generally don't watch scary movies in our home anyway.
What's important is that our children understand the meaning behind all of this. We are celebrating life, particularly eternal life with God, and in doing so we are honoring all those who have gone into heaven before us. Thus, we like to make sure they go to mass the following day - All Saints Day.
(BeliefNet) - We’ve all heard the allegations: Halloween is a pagan rite dating back to some pre-Christian festival among the Celtic Druids that escaped church suppression. Even today modern pagans and witches continue to celebrate this ancient festival. If you let your kids go trick-or-treating, they will be worshiping the devil and pagan gods.
Nothing could be further from the truth. The origins of Halloween are, in fact, very Christian and rather American. Halloween falls on October 31 because of a pope, and its observances are the result of medieval Catholic piety...
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Mr Knight, you are indeed a wise, caring and thoughtful parent. (I didnt know you were married with kids, congrats) We too, in this household, reject the glorification of violence or the occult and have insisted our kids dressed in costumes which reflected a catholic value. Catholic schools emphasize the saints by allowing kids to come dressed as their favorite or patron saints. A good post from you Mr Knigt, and i will (assuming your kind permission) will repost it. BTW, as a kind of joke I posted that i was going as Nancy Pelosi for halloween---- got some really funny comments back. NOW THERE, Mr Knight, is the wicked witch of the west. Tuesday we get the treat of seeing her defeated, she gets the trick. Pete Frey
yea I know christmas and easter are the common holidays that are accused of being pagan that surprised me with halloween
Halloween-the candy and cavities holiday. Dentists get the treat with the money they make on kids' cavities. Lol.
Sir Knight,
I read this article on another site. However, there are quite a few untruths here. The customs we associate with Halloween in America are both Pagan and Anti-Catholic, and I would caution Catholics to just that.
The celebration itself IS Pagan in it's origin. November 1, or Samhain, marked the beginning of winter for the Celts. Samhain was the name of the Celtic lord of death and the Celts clearly had tons of rituals associated with this event, including the idea that the souls of the dead returned on this evening. The Romans also celebrated in both October and November a festival to placate the Manes, the spirits of the underworld who at particular times were allowed to roam through the world seeking souls. So the celebrations themselves, with the rituals attached, clearly evolved from Paganism. The Catholic Church, however, began honoring the death of the Saints as early as the 400s particularly because the persecution of Christians under Diocletian had been so horrific. Perhaps in an effort to convert the Pagans in Britain, Wales, Ireland, and Scotland, Pope Gregory III saw fit to move this feast from May to Nov 1. Noteworthy is the fact that in 1925, Pope Pius XI established the Feast of Christ the King which was and is traditionally celebrated on the last Sunday in October, interestingly enough, to combat secularism and to emphasize the relationship between Christ the King and his Saints. The Novus Ordo Church has since moved this Feast to the Sunday before Advent.
The point is this, All Saints Day is a significant Holy Day in the life of the Church Militant. There is this constant reminder that all of us will die and that, if we work out our salvation with fear and steadfastness, we will be like the Saints, both named and unnamed. Until then, we will burn in the purification fire of purgatory or the eternal fires of hell.
The celebrations of parties and festivities are quite closely related, no doubt, to the Pagan festivals that were common in the beginning of the early Church. Good Catholics, in their wisdom, modified some of these practices to make the Day more Holy.
The Protestants who came to America in the early days would have rejected the practices all together, associating the pagan rituals with the devil, and the honoring of the Saints as Catholic.
In the 1840s as the Irish began flooding the U.S, they brought with them All Saint's Day and a leftover of pagan ideas. As a "holiday", Halloween, as we know it, did not exist until the 1900s. During this time, it was not uncommon for the Protestants to attack and humiliate Catholics on their way out to the cemeteries for Mass or as they were lighting candles. They threatened and played tricks on them.
It wasn't until the 1930s that Halloween costumes became mass marketed for children to "celebrate". Then candy-makers got into the business and the rest, as they say, is history.
Currently, Halloween is the 2nd most popular "holiday" in the US. One could reasonably argue that it will soon become #1, out passing Christmas, within the next decade. Modern people ARE NOT honoring the Saints. In fact, they don't even honor Christ anymore.
Catholics can fool themselves into believing that it's harmless and good fun if they want. But to believe that puts one's soul in jeopardy.
Paganism has had a resurgence in the last 50 years. It has taken over in Europe and it is rotting American. If you don't believe me, just wait 'til Christmas.
Perhaps it's no wonder that Pope Pius XI say a need to fight the battle of secularism that was waging in the West.
I disagree Anonymous. A lot of that information you posted is either innacurate or half true. In fact, the celts had many celebrations for lots of days of the year. That does not mean our current celebrations come from them.
Now tue problem with Halloween is similar to Christmas. It has been completely Secularized and it's meaning lost. Because of that Catholics must fight to take back the meaning from the secular culture. In the case of Halloween this can be done by boycotting the violence and occult in favor of wholesome practices and calling attention to All Saints Day.
Now wait till you see what I will soon post to take back Christmas.
You may disagree Sir Knight, after all it is your blog. But nothing that I posted is either inaccurate or half-truth. The American celebrations around Halloween are Pagan in their origins. The Celts, as well as Romans, Norwegians, etc, had tons of customs and festivals. There are many martyrs, who we are honoring, that died horrible deaths trying to convert the Pagans.
And Halloween, as celebrated in American, IS anti-Catholic. To deny that, is to flatly deny the history of America.
I'm not suggesting that people crawl in a hole and avoid having fun. But I am suggesting that Catholics, especially, know what it means to be a Catholic.
Okay, I guess I should have known this would come. Here is the problem. There is a lot of MYTH and URBAN LEGEND surrounding the origins of Halloween. Originally, these myths were started by radical Protestants in the middle 19th century around the same time Alexander Hyslop penned "Two Babyons," Ellen G. White started the "Seventh Day Adventists" and Charles Taze Russell started the Jehovah's Witnesses. All of these attempted to rewrite history to their own advantage. One of their tactics was to connect Catholicism with Paganism, and in doing so manufacture artificial origins for the celebration of Easter, Christmas and Halloween. They did this by finding obscure references to various Pagan feasts that fell on or near modern Christian festivals and then drew an artificial connection. In some cases, the connection may have been partially correct, but the general premise was almost never correct. Just because two festivals fall on similar dates, does not automatically mean they are connected. Furthermore, just because a Pagan feast has some similarities to a Christian celebration, doesn't necessarily mean the similarity is the result of the Christian celebration taking on the characteristics of the Pagan feast. In some cases it was quite the opposite. As Christianity started to gain popularity in the ancient world, some Pagans began imitating the Christian celebrations in an attempt to draw people back to Paganism. This is especially the case with Christmas. A Roman Emperor actually moved the rotating feast for the celebration of the unconquered sun to December 25th because of the increasing observation by many Romans of Christian Chanukah, (feast of the holy nativity) which started on December 25th, a Julian adaptation of the Jewish feast that began on Kesliv 25th.
So as the radical Protestants began redefining history, especially with the Christian holidays, their errors spread like wildfire all throughout the Protestant world, especially in North America, the UK and Australia. (In case you hadn't guessed, a lot of this historical revisionism is interconnected with Anglo-Israelism which has it's roots in Freemasonry.) The important thing to remember here is that all of this anti-Halloween and anti-Christmas nonsense comes to us primarily from militantly anti-Catholic sources. Again, this was propaganda to turn people away from the Catholic Church, and traditional Protestantism, and toward the emerging radical Protestant sects. Later, these myths were picked up by the occultists and Neopagans. Today these myths are accepted as "fact" especially by Muslims, who are now actively preaching them in mosques throughout America. I could go into the issues of Christmas and Easter, but I'll save that for another time. Instead I'll delve into the Halloween myths now...
Myth #1
Ancient Celtic tribes followed the religion of the Druids and lived in Wales, Ireland, Scotland, and Britain, Nov. 1 was New Years Day. It was also a joint festival honoring their Sun "god" and "Samhain", the lord of the dead.
Correction #1
In fact, we don't know much about the Druids as they relied entirely on oral tradition and didn't write anything down. What we know about the Druids comes mostly from the writings of their mortal enemies - the Romans - who recorded all sorts of wild accusations against them. I suppose these could be true, but then we shouldn't assume they are simply because the Romans said so. The Romans also recorded some pretty awful things about Christians too, none of which were true. In any case, what the Romans recorded had nothing to do with the current Halloween custom. While November 1st was the Celtic new year, there is no indication of anything akin to the Halloween customs we are accustomed to. Rather the ancient Celts did celebrate a feast on the end of every month of the year, including the month of October. The connection of "Samhain" to any sun god is spurious, as there is no linguistic or cultural connection whatsoever. As for "Samhain" or "Saman" being the "lord of the dead," this is a gross fallacy that seems to have been perpetuated in the early to middle 19th century. The actual date for Halloween comes to us from All Saints Day on November 1st, which was moved to that date by Pope Gregory III (d 741) from May 13th to coincide with the dedication of a new cathedral. Of course the evening vigil was celebrated on October 31st hence All Hallows Eve or Hallowe'en....
Myth #2
The Druids went from house to house, wearing masks, asking for a contribution to their demonic worship celebration. If a person didn't give, their trick was to kill him. The people feared the phrase "trick or Treat."
Correction #2
There is ABSOLUTELY NO EVIDENCE the Druids wore masks of any sort on October 31st, in Ireland, Scotland, England or Wales. Even IF masks were worn in the pagan era in the British Isles, the tradition was obviously broken for a good long time, as there is no record of it from antiquity - plenty of time for any ancient pagan traditions surrounding it to totally die out. There is absolutely no evidence from antiquity of anybody (including the ancient Celts) going door to door and killing people who didn't give them what they wanted. Not only is there no evidence of the tradition, but there is no evidence of connection between this "nonexistent tradition" and October 31st. This is a complete fabrication manufactured by Masonic Anglo-Israelists bent on slandering traditional Christian traditions in favor of creating a more Masonic (and therefore Judaized) Christianity - i.e. "Seventh Day Adventism" and "Jehovah's Witness" for example. The real origin of "Trick or Treat" comes to us from Guy Fawkes Day in England, wherein Protestants would approach Catholic homes on November 5th demanding "treats" to prevent a "trick" in remembrance of the capture and execution of Guy Fawkes who tried to blow up the English Parliament to usher in the return of a Catholic monarchy. By the time this tradition got to the American colonies, the connection to English history was lost, and the tradition was moved to October 31st, no longer related to the Catholic-Protestant divide. It became a night wherein urban youth would go out to "let off steam" by pranking their neighbors homes with soapy windows, turned over outhouses, and switched shop signs, etc. Unfortunately, by the 1920s, the event became excessively destructive and violent. So organizations, such as the Boy Scouts for example, organized a campaign to change the celebration into a neighborhood costume contest for youth, wherein they would be rewarded by their neighbors with "treats" for their costumes, in exchange for not have "tricks" played on them....
Myth #3
Halloween was a holy day for witches and pagans.
Correction #3
Halloween (October 31st) was not a particularly holy day for witches or pagans of ancient history. However, it has become that for modern wiccans and neopagans, thanks to the false association with ancient Paganism created by the Masonic Anglo-Israelists and radical Protestants of the 19th century. This is particularly the case in recent decades as the Masonic propaganda was picked up by the modern Evangelical movement. The neopagan connection to Halloween is nothing more than a self-fulfilling prophecy. At this point the ONLY option for Christians is to counter it by actively engaging the Halloween celebration once again, rather than running and hiding from it. It is likely that one reason why Halloween has taken on such a macabre character in recent decades is precisely because of Christian failure to engage the culture. Christian abandonment of Halloween, in favor of secularized customs, has created a vacuum for Neopagans to fill, basing their action on the Masonic propaganda that caused so many Christians to abandon the celebration in the first place....
The ONLY way for Christians to take back the celebration of October 31st and November 1st and 2nd, is for Christians to actively engage the culture. We need to hijack the celebration if you will, and take back what is rightfully ours. Boycotts of certain aspects of Halloween can be useful to a certain extent. Beyond that, Christians must actively engage. This is especially important for Catholics, because All Saints Day and All Souls Day has virtually no relevance to most Protestants. Thus 90% of the burden falls to Catholics.
Perhaps some of my readers can offer some of their own suggestions of how Halloween might better be reclaimed by our Catholic Christian heritage?
Stumbled across your blog, Mr. Knight.
Your are free to believe what you wish regarding your own religion. Pagans (both new and old) will believe what they want. I myself, promise not to criticize or make assmptions about your faith if you'll show the same courtesy about others.
Happy Samhain!
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