Church rituals on All Saints’ and All Souls’ Days guide believers through a boundless fear of death into faithful hope in God’s mercy. Hovering between regular time and a holy day of obligation, Halloween is a sideshow in the drama of the soul and its destination. “All Hallow’s Eve” is not yet All Souls’ Day, when memorials are offered to those who have died Halloween represents a time before faith, when superstitions insisted that the dead wander the earth. To “hallow” means to honor, memorialize, and sanctify. For the secular tradition of giving treats on Halloween has its roots in the belief that by doing good works, such as giving food to beggars, the giver can help souls get to Heaven, and perhaps get there himself as well. But to dismiss the October 31 ritual is to forfeit a perfectly good opportunity to practice the virtue of charity on the eve of All Souls’ Day.
A church in my neighborhood is set to celebrate what they primly call a “Fall Fling Fiesta” on Halloween, with nary a costume to be found. Increasingly, Halloween seems disturbing to people of faith, who have good reason to celebrate its link to eternal truths. it is not the pious rituals of All Souls’ Day but the pagan shenanigans of Halloween that announce the close of the Church year. Christian culture is etched in small acts: Flowers placed on a grave proclaim the bearers’ belief in personal sacrifice, and the humble ritual serves to mark the end of the liturgical year.īack home in the U.S. As I arrived at the crowded bus shelter, there were one or two more well-dressed Spaniards holding flowers and waiting for the bus that would take them to the cemetery. It took another half a block or so before I remembered that it was All Souls’ Day and the flowers were destined to adorn the graves of their relatives. A little farther on I saw an old man and his wife standing at a bus stop also holding yellow and white bouquets. Transferring the bags from one arm to the other and trying to balance the bulky, heavy loads, I stopped briefly on the narrow sidewalk and saw a woman crossing the street carrying a bundle of yellow and white flowers. I had spent all my pesetas on carrots, thin-sliced ham, green and red peppers, olives, a plump chicken, oranges, and whatever else I could carry. On November 2, 1997, I was walking to a bus stop after shopping at the Mercado in a Spanish town south of Seville. A two-year residency in Andalusia, Spain, generated her keen interest in the use of pageantry and tradition to observe the cycle of the Catholic liturgical year. in Education from the University of Miami. in Folklore and Mythology from UCLA and an M.S.
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