Hallowe'en and Samhain

I spent last Sunday afternoon in a cemetery. I was not alone.

We band of Catholics said a rosary for our departed relatives. The bishop presided.

And this concluded the Hallowe’en Tridium.

There is a popular misconception that Hallowe’en is a pagan festival: specifically, the Celtic harvest festival, Samhain. This is often stated as simple fact. It shows a profound ignorance of religion, mixed in with some surviving puritan anti-Catholic propaganda.

Does it not occur to these people that the non-Celtic Mexicans celebrate their mysteriously similar “Dia de los Muertos” on the same date?

In the Philippines, families spend that same evening in the cemetery. They commonly bring the favourite foods of departed ancestors to hold a picnic at their graves.

Hallowe’en is the eve of All Saints’ Day—“All Hallows Evening.” This three-day memorial for the dead is part of the culture of any Catholic country. It is a time to pray for the souls of those in purgatory, and to remember the truth that death will come for us as well: a “memento mori.” 

Ghosts are the souls of those in Purgatory. 

Demonic figures coming around to “trick or treat” remind us of the dangers of Hell.

All can be explained perfectly in proper Catholic terms.

Samhain is more related to the North American feast of Thanksgiving.

Happy Halloween

 

Halloween is here. Another round of culturally illiterate claims that it is based on the pagan Celtic feast of Samhain.

It is not. It is All Hallows Eve, part of a three-day Christian celebration in honour of departed souls; just as Christmas Eve is part of Christmas, and New Year’s Eve part of the New Year celebration. Next day is All Saints Day, and the day after All Souls Day. First a day to remember the souls in heaven, then a day to pray for the souls in purgatory.

There is no point in praying for souls in hell.

If it is all based on a pagan Celtic feast, why is it celebrated in Mexico, with no Celtic traditions to speak of, as the Day of the Dead? Why is it celebrated in the Philippines, as an evening you spend in the graveyard, burning a candle and holding a family picnic at the graves of your ancestors?

It is a reminder that the dead are still with us, and a memento mori, a reminder that for us too, this life on earth is temporary, not our final destination. And so the souls of the dead may wander the streets.

The claim that it is all Samhain is in part Black Legend, a survival of English anti-Catholicism, which wanted to portray anything Catholic as pagan. 

And it is in part an irrational fear of death.

Because we moderns are terrified of death and the afterlife, we have transferred the meaning of the festival to fear itself. Children now simply dress as scary monsters, and Hallowe’en is supposed to be scary. The real theme, death and the afterlife, is suppressed precisely because we find it too scary. We sublimate it by having children dress up as spooks, and give them candy and pretend to be scared, so we can pretend it is all make-believe.

Good people are not afraid of death; they do not whistle past graveyards. It is our conscience that makes Hallowe’en frightening to us. It implies judgement.