A Catholic Rethinking of All Hallows Eve

A really post, who would have thought!  I have a lot of things that I would like to write about but time and brain space are conspiring against that happening.  However, today being the 31st of October, I thought it fitting that does get written about is more thought on an old argument.  (You can read previous entries here, here, here, and finally here).

We often forget that the 31st of October is not just Halloween, but also the date the Martin Luther nailed his famous 95 thesis to the door of Wittenberg Chapel, and so is remember as the start of the Reformation.  The shared date brings to mind differences between Catholicism and Protestantism, particularly in regard to how they view the dead.  The Catholic Church stresses the unity of community of believers, including the unity of the dead and the living.  Those of us still one earth ask Christians who have gone before us to intercede for us, while we pray for the souls of the depart to abbreviate their time in purgatory and help them on their way to heaven.

And it is in this ritual that the two, Halloween and the Reformation are connected.  Martin Luther rejected the idea of purgatory and so for a Protestant the communion between the living and the dead only works one way--there can be no prayers for the dead.  John Zmirak at Inside Catholic points out that this is why so many Protestants see Halloween as demonic.  If the afterlife is restricted to a strict dichotomy between heaven and hell, then dressing up as anything as a besides and angel or a saint is a celebration of the demonic.  However, within a Catholic perspective the the spookiness, and the fright of Halloween reminds us of our human condition, of the uncertainty of the state of our souls and those who went before us, of the effects of sin and the importance of praying for the dead.

So while intercessory masses on All Souls day are important, dressing up as something scary for Halloween or participating in a day of the dead ritual like decorating a grave and pay your respects to a grave can also strengthen us and remind us of our role as the church militant.  As fallen people we ought to be frightened ever once in a while.