All Saints, All Souls, and Halloween

This time of year, we celebrate All Saints Day, followed by All Souls Day, and then there’s Halloween thrown into the mix!  How do all of these fit together?

If you look at your Church calendar, you will notice the names of saints on almost every day.  The feast of All Saints was established by the Church because numerous martyrs and other saints could not be honored with individual feast days:  there simply weren’t enough days in the year!  So, as the prayer of the Mass states, "we venerate the merits of all the saints by this one celebration” on November 1st.

From the very beginning, the commemoration of All Saints included, in a special way, the Blessed Virgin.  When Pope Boniface IV dedicated the former pagan temple of the Pantheon as a church almost 1400 years ago, he called it the church of the "Blessed Virgin Mary and all the Martyrs."  Thus, All Saints Day is really a great feast day of Mary, too.  It is a Holy Day of Obligation.

The commemoration of All Souls was introduced in the year 1000.  All the monks of a Benedictine congregation in France began offering a Mass for the suffering souls in Purgatory every year on November 2nd.  The popes in Rome extended this celebration to the whole Church, and since then, we continue to pray for the holy souls throughout the year, but also have a special day devoted to their prayerful memory.

What does this have to do with Halloween on October 31st?  The word “Halloween” is short for All Hallow’s Eve, which is the eve or evening before we honor those who are “hallowed” or have been made holy - that is, the saints.  You’ve heard the word before, in the Lord’s Prayer, when we pray, in reference to God, “hallowed be Thy name.”  Although the name of this tradition is taken from the great Christian feast, the ways we observe Halloween, like dressing in costume and going trick-or-treating, are not connected with any Christian meaning.  These practices have come down to us from the pagan practices of the ancient Celtic societies.  And while there is little harm in dressing up and eating candy, in a Catholic home, participation in Halloween should not be explained as being connected to the Christian feast.  We may certainly enjoy the fun and games, but we should not neglect to talk about the great feasts of All Saints and All Souls. 

After the Halloween frolics are over, perhaps while the Snickers and Candy Corn are being consumed, turn your mind to the Lord and prepare to greet all the heroes of God during this time of remembrance and celebration.