All Hallowtide - A Christian Baptism of Paganism or Something More?

Vanitas Still Life with a Tulip, Skull and Hour Glass, by Philippe de Champaigne, c. 1671. Tessé Museum, Le Mans, France.

The Skeleton

Chattering finch and water-fly
Are not merrier than I;
Here among the flowers I lie
Laughing everlastingly.
No; I may not tell the best;
Surely, friends, I might have guessed
Death was but the good King's jest,
It was hid so carefully

- G.K. Chesterton, 1890, Collected Works of G.K. Chesterton, vol. 10, Collected Poetry

Even before October was within our sights, the rumblings of worry and concern “Should my family celebrate Halloween?” began to permeate online Catholic spaces. The rumblings have turned into a low, constant hum of anxiety with many voices adding bits and pieces of the Church’s history, but rarely the full picture of the Catholic Christian origins of Halloween.

No doubt you’ve seen flash across your screen more than one post or meme about Halloween, it’s Celtic origins of Samhain (SAH-win, or SOW-in), and supposedly how early Catholics baptized this pagan celebration, incorporating elements into our faith. Suggestions that we should abandon this holiday, wholesale, because of its pagan roots pervade the conversation with little thought to if Catholics actually baptized Samhain, creating the Halloween we know today in the West. We may not know the intricate details of each period of time from the beginnings of Halloween until today but we have the benefit of Church history, carefully kept through the centuries, to back up what we do know. Neo-paganism would claim that Halloween is simply the Christianized version of Samhain, now finally being stripped of the last vestiges of Christian thought and purpose. Yet, writings from early Christians paint a different picture.

Before I became Catholic I thought very little about Halloween or its origins, whether it was a secularized holy-day or a celebration with foundations in paganism. Halloween was a day of costumes and candy, mostly for the benefit of children, what else could it possibly be? Still in the last few years it’s become more of an issue of concern in Catholic circles, voices of converts, and cradle Catholics alike expressing concern, and so three years ago, after my heart was set on fire anew in this Catholic faith, I decided to dive a little deeper to learn the true meaning of Halloween, or All Hallowtide - from a Catholic perspective. I shared a small part of it with my Instagram readers, but here I want to go a bit deeper, reflecting on the Catholicity¹ of All Hallowtide and why we should not only know of it but celebrate it fully.

What is All Hallowtide?

It is a Triduum, a period of three days focused on prayer, much like the Paschal Triduum before Easter.

• Halloween (All Hallow’s Eve) is in fact a vigil to All Saints’ Day and meant to be a reminder of our mortality - Memento Mori “Remember, you must die.” Where we focus on the Church Militant, those of us still on earth struggling against sin, and turn our gaze to our Hope after death.

• All Saints’ Day is when we focus on the Church Triumphant, all those saints who are now in Heaven basking in the Glory of God.

• All Souls’ Day is the day our attention is brought to the Church Suffering, where we pray for all the souls who are awaiting Heaven in Purgatory.

First The History²

Honoring the dead and martyrs can be seen all the way back to the New Testament (Matt. 14:12, Acts 8:2), as well as in the Early Christian writings of St. John Chrysostom (404 AD)³ and St. Ephrem the Syrian (373 AD).⁴ In the 4th century, neighboring diocese began to share feast days as well as the relics of martyrs with each other, heightening awareness of the many Christian martyrs in various regions and countries. Such was the number of martyrs that often whole groups of people would have died on the same day. So we begin to see in the writings of these early Christians the mention of a common day of recognition towards the end of the 300’s.

Then⁵…

In the year 609, Pope Boniface IV follows in the footsteps of earlier Christians by consecrating the Pantheon in Rome to all Christian martyrs and to the Blessed Virgin Mary. You see, Early Christians had made a bit of a habit of solemnizing the anniversary of martyrs’ deaths for Christ.

Fast forward a few hundred years…

Pope Gregory III (731-741) consecrated a chapel in the Basilica of St. Peter to all the Saints on Nov. 1st making it a significant feast day for many Christians in the West, most likely still confined to diocese nearest to Rome⁶. With Pope Gregory IV (827-844) came the expansion to the entire Church, meaning outside of Rome, of this day known as All Saints’ Day, celebrated on November 1st. On this day the Church recognizes the Church Triumphant, all those holy men and women in Heaven who boldly proclaim “Where O death is your victory? Where O Death, is your sting?” 1 Cor. 15:55.

Finally…

The Octave (8 days) was added by Pope Sixtus IV (1471-1484) and this Octave remained as common practice until Vatican II in 1955⁷. Now what remains is the Holy Day of Obligation for All Saints’ Day (Nov. 1st) without the vigil of All Hallows (All Saints) Eve nor the Octave, encompassing November 2nd, All Souls day.

With all this history, I found that All Hallowtide is distinctly Catholic and vestiges of it remain in the newly remade Halloween for modern America⁸. It is not pagan nor related to Samhain, as some state by claiming Catholicism baptized this festival, incorporating elements to appease the Celtic population. Rather it started because of All Saints Day, in Rome, by the Church and while we will never know the inscrutable details of how the two became intertwined, thankfully Church history lays out a clear path for us to help decipher fact from fiction.

So what is Samhain?

We can confidently state that Samhain is an ancient Celtic festival, one that occurred on the British Isles, around the halfway point between the fall equinox and winter solstice⁹ and was considered a sacred time when the veil between the living and the dead was thin.¹⁰ It most likely was a Harvest Festival where the locals would gather to take stock of what they had stored up for the winter season and celebrate, though we do not know much of the details of what exactly happened at these festivals.¹¹ In some ways it is not very different from today’s Harvest Festivals, celebrating the cooler weather and change of seasons, held by well-meaning Christians attempting to get away from the supposed paganism of Halloween.

What should Catholic Christians do today?

The best place to start is with what the Church still holds true today:

We impose no fast before any feast-day, but we suggest that the devout will find greater Christian joy in the feasts of the liturgical calendar if they freely bind themselves, for their own motives and in their own spirit of piety, to prepare for each Church festival by a day of particular self-denial, penitential prayer and fasting.” - USCCB

1. Halloween (All Hallows Eve):

   The idea of fasting on Halloween would probably seem too extreme in today’s culture yet through a lens of Faith we can see the fruits of making such a choice on the vigil of All Saints’ Day. By choosing to live out the liturgy and life of the Church we are brought into greater Joy of realizing where our Hope lies, but also recognizing our mortality - Memento Mori: Remember you must die.

   • “Then I proclaimed a fast there, at the river of Ahava, that we might humble ourselves before our God, to seek from Him a straight way for ourselves, our children and all our goods.” Ezra 8:21

   • “When I humbled my soul with fasting, it became my reproach.” Psalm 69:10

   • “Then I turned my face to the Lord God, seeking Him by prayer and supplications with fasting, and sackcloth and ashes.” Daniel 9:3

   By Fasting we combine the physical and the spiritual into one mission, to detach ourselves from our earthly desires, humbling ourselves in our weakness, and petition God to hear us.

   “The spirit of humility is sweeter than honey, and those who nourish themselves with this honey produce sweet fruit.”

   -St. Anthony of Padua

   Some ways we celebrate:

   • Fast - This can be fasting from social media, TV or more traditionally from food.

   • Go to Mass - Check around your area and see if there is a church offering Mass on this day.

   • Read Scripture - Sirach 7:36, Genesis 3:19, Eccles. 12:7

   • Dress up as Angels or Saints - a costume that works for 2 days is always a plus for this busy mom. Consider ditching secular Halloween attire and focus on costumes that raise our minds and hearts towards Heaven.

2. All Saints’ Day:

   As a Holy Day of obligation it can be easy to see this as an “Ought to” instead of a “Get to” day. Yet we are all called to Holiness, to Sainthood, and we are so blessed to be called! On this day we get to focus on all Saints, not just those that are canonized but all Saints - all known and unknown holy men and women in Heaven. It’s a day we get to celebrate those great known Saints, reflect on their lives and their Fiat to our Lord - how can we do the same? It is day we get to dress up, have some fun and truly feast, celebrating the Hope we have in Christ that these holy men and women now realize in the Glory of God. It is a day we get to, so let’s seize the day (Carpe Diem) and truly Celebrate!

   Some ways we celebrate:

   • All Saints’ Day party - Dress up as your favorite saint and get together with friends, even just one other family. Share a bit about the saint you’ve chosen and why they inspire you to live for God.

   • Mass - Yes we are required to be at Mass but again what a Joy it is to spend time with the Lord, asking Him to guide us closer to being the Saints He has called us all to be.

   • Feast - Tonight have that fancy steak, pull out that nice bottle of wine, feast and celebrate for we are all called to be Saints! Hallelujah!

   • Pray - The Eternal Rest prayer, Read from the Gospel of Matthew 5:3-12, and ask a Saint you admire to pray for you (The prayer of a righteous man has great power in its effects - James 5:16)

3. All Souls’ Day:

   Last year was the first time I ever attended an All Souls’ Day Mass. We met in the church cemetery and I couldn’t help but acknowledge the feelings of peace as we prepared to celebrate the Mass, having only been in a cemetery 2 months prior to bury my beloved brother in law. The priest and deacons dressed in black vestments, and all us laity standing for the duration. This is the day we dedicate our focus on those who have left their mortal bodies and have not yet perfected their love of God in their earthly life. The church never presumes who is in heaven or not, so today and all of November we pray for the souls in Purgatory who completely rely on us to pray for them. (2 Maccabees 12:42-45)

   Some ways we celebrate:

   • Attend Mass at a cemetery - nothing makes you think of Momento Mori quite like celebrating the Mass at a cemetery, among so many who have trod where we have yet to go.

   • Remember in prayer those family who have passed before us.

   • Visit a loved one’s grave

Most importantly, don’t stress about making big changes in how you celebrate. It has taken my family four years since we’ve started being more intentional around this solid Catholic Triduum, to make changes and add in more Catholic elements, bringing the holiday back to its original purpose. The goal is to make little, sustainable changes that help orient our hearts and minds to the purpose of these days - Mortality, Hope, and Prayer.

1. Catholicity: the character of being in conformity with a Catholic church.

2. Catholic.com - In the fourth century, neighboring dioceses began to interchange feasts, to transfer relics, to divide them, and to join in a common feast; as is shown by the invitation of St. Basil of Caesarea (397) to the bishops of the province of Pontus.

3. Tassone, Susan (2001). Praying in the Presence of Our Lord for the Holy Souls. Our Sunday Visitor Publishing. p. 41. “Honoring the Dead by St. John Chrysostom: Will you honor the dead? ... Let us help and commemorate them. If Job's sons were purified by their Father's sacrifice, why would we doubt that our offerings for the dead bring them some consolation? Let us not hesitate to help those who have died and to offer our prayers for them.”

4. Smith, William; Wace, Henry (1880). A Dictionary of Christian Biography, Literature, Sects and Doctrines. J. Murray. p. 139. “He also wrote on Repentance, on the Dead, and on Martyrs.” “Upon the Festival of our Lord, we read, on the first days of the week, and on the days kept in honour of martyrs, Ephrem gathered round him his choirs”

5. Catholic.com - In the West, Boniface IV, May 13, 609, or 610, consecrated the Pantheon in Rome to the Blessed Virgin and all the martyrs, ordering an anniversary.

6. NewAdvent.org - Catholic Encyclopedic. Gregory III (731-741) consecrated a chapel in the Basilica of St. Peter to all the saints and fixed the anniversary for 1 November.

7. Liturgical Arts Journal, Claudio Salvucci : “Hallowtide was, in fact, truncated at both ends in that fateful year. Not only was All Hallows Eve abolished at the beginning, but the Octave of All Saints was abolished at the end. For decades now we have been catapulting into and out of two very different liturgical days with hardly any time to prepare for them or reflect on them.”

8. Liturgical Arts Journal, Claudio Salvucci : “As Vespers came to a close, the lay Catholic of bygone ages retired with all these great themes and concepts fresh in his mind, preparing himself for the festivities of the next day. He would have seen priestly vestments change through the day from penitential violet, to somber black, to white or gold.  And what, today, forms the Halloween color palette? Purple, black, white and orange—matching Church’s liturgy almost perfectly, save for the characteristic hue of the North American Autumn.”

9. WorldHistory.org - The ancient Celts divided the year into two halves, the lighter half and the darker half, and held four celebrations to mark the changing seasons:

Imbolc - celebrated halfway between the winter solstice and the spring equinox

Beltane - halfway between the spring equinox and the summer solstice

Lughnasadh - halfway between the summer solstice and fall equinox

Samhain - halfway between the fall equinox and winter solstice

10. WorldHistory.org - Samhain was considered an auspicious time for the druids to practice divination, since the connection to the spirit world was stronger than usual. The lifting of the veil between the Otherworld and the physical world meant that Samhain was also considered to be a perilous time for the ancient Celts.

11. WorldHistory.org - It was a time for making winter preparations; crops were harvested, and animals were rounded up from the fields either to be sacrificed or lodged for the winter and used for breeding. Feasts, abundant in both food and alcohol, were held to celebrate the harvest.