As it is that time of year, I thought I'd share some information about Hallowtide - that is, All Hallows Eve, All Hallows Day, and All Souls Day. I hope the information here will be both interesting and useful to those who want to better understand the Catholic origins of popular holidays and know the difference between what we Catholics celebrate and why versus other holidays such as Samhain and Dia de los Muertos. For time immemorable, pretty much every culture, nation, and faith under the sun has found it important to commemorate the dead in some way. I believe archeologists have dated the earliest evidence of humans holding true funerals to 300,000 years ago. We've always found significance in death, and ever since we started burying the dead, we have also sought to remember our dead. It is as natural to us as celebrating birthdays and marriages. As Christians, death is seen differently from how the world saw it prior to Christ and how the world seems to now see it in spite of Christ. When Jesus Christ rose from the grave on the third day, he conquered death and opened up to all of us the chance at life eternal. In that light, death is the last step of our mortal lives and the first step into eternal life. How we live our lives on earth matters greatly, as it determines how we will spend our eternity: ultimately, in Heaven or in Hell. For those who reject Christ and live unrepentant lives in opposition to His will, eternal Hell and separation from Him is the final destination. Those who accept Christ and live and die in a state of grace are assured the reward of eternal bliss with Him in Heaven. Since many souls do not perfectly love God, and since Heaven is a place of perfect love in the presence of our perfect God, there exists also Purgatory. Purgatory is the place where imperfect souls are made perfect through suffering, which unlike the suffering of the souls in Hell, is temporary, sustained by Love, and tempered by the hope and assurance of attaining Heaven. Among the earliest Christians were converts from pagan faiths, who brought with them their customs of memorializing the dead, customs which often were in no way contradictory to the Christian faith and it's belief in the Resurrection. By the 2nd Century, there is evidence of the commemoration of the dead within the Mass itself. The dead were commemorated three days after their death to reflect the three days Christ spent in death, and also their deaths were memorialized once on the anniversary of their death. To early Christians, those who gave up their lives rather than deny belief in Jesus Christ - the Martyrs - were highly esteemed. They demonstrated a willingness to make the ultimate sacrifice out of love for Jesus, and to be martyred for the faith was seen as one of the most sure ways of entering Heaven. The earliest Christians would celebrate each martyr on the anniversary of their death yearly. By the 3rd Century, following the Persecution of Christians by the Emperor Diocletian, there was such an abundance of martyrs that it became impractical for each one to have his or her own annual memorial, so it became common to set aside one day for all of the martyrs. This common celebration was solidified by the 4th Century as a Feast day for the Martyrs of the Church. Various dates for this Feast Day were held in East and West, but a common date in the west for the memorial was May 13th. By the 7th Century, May 13th was the date of the Feast of the Martyrs used in Rome. In Rome, one of the most important buildings from antiquity was the Pantheon - a temple built by pagan Rome to honor all of the gods and goddesses. In the year 609 AD, the Pantheon was gifted to Pope Boniface IV by Emperor Phocas. Boniface IV had the temple consecrated as a Christian Church in honor of Mary and the martyrs, and it became the resting place of 28 wagon-loads of bones of Christian martyrs! In the 8th Century on November 1st, Pope Gregory III dedicated a chapel in Old St. Peter's Basilica in honor of all the saints, not just saints who were martyrs. A little later in the 8th Century, it was already commonplace for November 1st to be set aside in England and Ireland to commemorate the Feast of All Saints. In the 7th Century, Bishop Isadore of Seville is credited with setting aside one day of the year to commemorate the all the faithful departed, ordering the monks under his supervision to do so during Mass the day after the feast of Pentecost. In the 9th Century, Abbot Eigil of Fulda ordered a similar commemoration of the dead for December 17th, and Abbot Odo of Cluny in the year 998 had all monasteries under his jurisdiction hold their commemoration of the faithful departed as All Souls Day, held on November 2nd after All Saints Day. He commanded the faithful to give alms, pray, and make sacrifices for the relief of the suffering souls in Purgatory. All Souls Day rapidly spread throughout Europe, particularly in France, England, and Germany. It was adopted in Italy by the 13th Century. These are the Catholic origins of All Saints Day and All Souls Day; All Saints Day (aka, Feast of All Saints or All Hallows) being the commemoration of all saints in Heaven, and All Souls Day being a day to memorialize all the faithful departed in Purgatory. The primary means of celebrating both holidays is within the context of the Holy Mass itself, with All Saints Day typically being a Holy Day of Obligation with rare exception. Various customs arose, particularly on All Hallow's Eve. For All Saints Day, it was common for churches to display relics of the saints for public veneration and processions. In communities of meager means, it was not always possible to attain relics of prominent saints for this end, so the faithful would sometimes dress up as saints instead for processions and recitations of their saint's heroic and holy deeds. This would often take place on All Hallow's Eve, as the evening preceding a major feast day marks the beginning of the celebration of that feast day. Another custom of souling came about in Europe in the Middle Ages. Peasant children, and sometimes adults, would visit wealthier homes on All Hallow's Eve and offer to pray for their dead in exchange for cakes, treats, or even a penny. Sometimes these children would even disguise themselves in costumes. Here, we see the early development of what would become trick-or-treating, and it was common for these peasants to carry lanterns carved from vegetables such as turnips - the prototype of today's Jack-O-Lanterns - to represent the souls of those in Purgatory. Another custom, the Danse Macabre, arose in Europe in the 15th Century, particularly in France. Often expressed in paintings and carvings, it was popular to depict the living dancing with the dead, having been summoned to the grave by a personification of Death. Representatives of all walks of life would be shown among the living, and the illustrations served as a reminder that everyone one day must die. Peasants would dress up for the Danse Macabre during Hallowtide to act out these scenes, even to lively music. This also would become inspiration for people dressing up for Halloween, especially as ghosts or skeletons. Over time, the name of All Hallow's Eve was shortened to Hallowe'en and then Halloween, just as the Feast of the Nativity also being called Christ's Mass has become Christmas. Commonly, you'll hear people say that Halloween is in fact a pagan holiday, or that Christians "stole" pagan holidays and customs and rebranded them or replaced them with Halloween. This is misconception at best and often a means of discrediting the Catholic Church at worst. As noted earlier, commemoration of the dead is and always has been a universal human trait, so it is wrong to say the Church invented these holidays or stole them from pagans. The ancient Celtic celebration of Samhain in Autumn is often cited as the "true" origin of Halloween. The Celts were not a unified people, but a common culture found throughout Europe, different Celtic peoples celebrated Samhain in various ways. In Ireland at least, Samhain was a time for tribes to gather and feast, and every seven years all tribes would gather in one place to participate in festive competitions and also to enact laws where the High King would dole out responsibilities and offices to lesser kings and chieftains. Some believed that the world of the dead and the world of the living would come together at this time, and being wary of the dead, would take measures to avoid offending them by turning their clothes inside out. To honor the dead and gain their blessing on their homes, crops, and livestock, food would be left out for wandering souls. Dia de los Muertos, aka The Day of the Dead, is also a cultural celebration seen as an origin to Halloween or something the Church "ripped off" from Mexican culture. This holiday is celebrated on November 1st and 2nd. There is actually some controversy over when or how Day of the Dead celebrations began. The pre-Colombian Aztecs had half a dozen celebrations a year to honor the dead, one taking place between October 20th - November 8th. Similar to Sahmahin but independent of it, it was customary to leave out tamales on altars for the souls of fallen warriors to aid their journey to the afterlife. It is largely believed that the current celebration of Day of the Dead is developed more from the Christian influence of All Souls Day, incorporating some pre-Christian elements. On Dia de los Muertos, families gather together to celebrate the happy memory of their dead. Altars are left in public areas or in the home, called offrendas, and the food and drink enjoyed by the dead are left there to entice them to return to visit. The living will offer them also their prayers, and will visit cemeteries to clean them up and decorate the graves of loved ones. Families will mark the holiday with parties, telling stories of departed loved ones, and sharing special meals. Neither Dia de los Muertos or Samhain bear much resemblance to the current, secular celebration of Halloween, though Dia de los Muertos at least seems to hold much more in common with the Catholic celebration of All Souls Day and is likely more influenced by it than ancient pre-Colombian festivals. Currently, Halloween as it is celebrated by mainstream society in the United States is rather unique to the United States, but has caught on in other parts of the world as the world tends to adopt American customs here and there. The association with celebrating horror and gore is fairly new to Halloween, and has no origins in Christian celebration or even ancient pagan festivals. If people choose to mark this time of the year with horror and gore, they may be celebrating something, but it is not Halloween. If they choose to recreate and reconstruct ancient Celtic rituals, they may be celebrating something they call Samhain, but Samhain is not Halloween. If they choose to set out offrendas to appease the souls of their dead loved ones, they may be celebrating Dia de los Muertos, but Dia de los Muertos is not Halloween. Halloween is the Eve of All Hallows, a time to remember the lives of the Saints in Heaven. Following All Hallow's is All Souls day in which we commemorate the lives of those who have died in God's grace but are in Purgatory, in need of our prayers. The best way to commemorate both days is firstly to attend Mass, on both All Saints Day and All Souls Day where possible, especially a Requiem Mass, in which black vestments are used and a catafaulque is present to represent the faithfully departed. Processions with members dressed as saints are appropriate, as well as processions to cemeteries to pray for the dead there. There's no harm in trick-or-treating, handing out treats, or even sharing ghost stories for fun, but be sure this is done in addition to the celebration of our authentically Christian holidays and not in place of it! ----------------------------------- - Adam, Adolf. 1992. The Liturgical year: Its history and its meaning after the reform of the liturgy. Liturgical Press. Collegeville, MN. - Bannatyne, Lesley 31 August 1998. Halloween. Pelican Publishing Company. - Butler, Alban 1990. "St Odilo, Abbot". In Herbert J. Thurston; Donald Attwater eds.. Butler's Lives of the Saints. Volume I: January - February - March. Westminster, Maryland: Christian Classics. - Mershman, Francis. "All Saints' Day." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. ^1. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1907. 15 Oct. 2021 Rogers, Nicholas 2001. Halloween: From Pagan Ritual to Party Night. Oxford University Press. - Wikipedia

Basic Beat Saturday [Darkwave Edition]

Dear r/Catholicism mystics: There is a 99% chance that the reason you felt "funny" during prayer - faint, dizzy, tingling, vibrating, etc - is because you have low blood sugar or your posture was such that you cut off your circulation a bit. Go eat some Lance Crackers.

My new role model

My TikTok feed is flooded by posts from Mexicans telling everyone else they're not allowed to participate Dia de los Muertos and set up ofrendas, and also posts by mostly white people displaying what they've set up and asking for approval from Mexicans. Y'all know we have All Souls Day, right? Anyone can celebrate it. It's a Catholic holiday but honestly you don't have to be Catholic to do it. I know you want the sugar skulls, colorful flowers and decorations, and an excuse to show off your artistic side-but there are no limits on how to celebrate it at home and the best part is since Catholicism is for everybody, you can participate guilt free!

Dia de Muertos is basically an All Souls Day DLC.

I believe this is what the kids call "an absolute banger".

😂

I've heard many men use a tactic on dating apps where they swipe right on EVERY profile so they don't waste their time reviewing profiles of women who will never swipe right on them. So "unattractive" women get lots of hits, but they never get a reply back when they match. I can confirm that I got a lot of hits when I was trying dating apps but when I matched with a guy and messaged he never replied Because I'm unattractive. So no, a below average woman getting tons of swipes doesn't mean much. Men are liking every profile in a 100-mile radius and then taking their pick out of the women who like them back. Women are WAY more discerning and will only swipe on men they're actually interested in, and THOSE men won't respond to their messages when they reach out. The sad truth is the entire dating scene sucks for men and women. The hot, quality men and women are not on dating apps. They're getting hit on and exchanging numbers on their lunch break across the street or while grocery shopping. Dating apps are for those of us who are not hot or who have personality issues preventing people from approaching us in real life.

I really hate this idea.

POOOOOOOOOPE!!

Chef Cooks for the Archbishop