October 31 is known as Halloween because the following day, All Saints Day, is a solemnity and a holy day of obligation so the Church’s official prayers begin with a vigil the evening before.
On All Saints Day, the Catholic Church honors all of God’s saints, even those who have not been canonized by the Church. All Saints Day is celebrated on November 1.
Halloween is not a pagan holiday but a day that the Church joyfully celebrates those holy men and women who are experiencing the fulness of life with God in Heaven for eternity. Catholics also ask for their prayers so that they may join them someday.
Holy people are referred to as “hallowed” so the evening (e’en) before became known as All Hallows Eve or Hallowe’en.
Halloween is part of Allhallowtide, three days when Catholics remember all those who have died. Allhallowtide includes All Hallows Eve, All Saints Day, and All Souls Day on November 2.
The eve of the celebration of all the saints:
Preparing for the feast on the evening before:
Halloween is part of Allhallowtide:
After this I had a vision of a great multitude, which no one could count, from every nation, race, people, and tongue. They stood before the throne and before the Lamb, wearing white robes and holding palm branches in their hands. They cried out in a loud voice: “Salvation comes from our God, who is seated on the throne, and from the Lamb.”
Revelation 7: 9-10
One of the most Catholic holidays on the calendar:
The joyful Jewish roots of Halloween:
Halloween is more Catholic than you think:
It is true that, sometimes, faced with the mystery of death and separation, feelings may arise that are not all good and healthy. Ideas of discouragement or even despair may arise, while, on the other hand, the ignoble and anti-Christian intention of enjoying the fleeting moment of life, of wanting to gather the fruits of well-being, since then death comes, may creep in. But this is not the true lesson that comes from the tombs on which is the sign of the Redemption. We know that these dead are dead in their bodies: dissolved in the earth from which they have drawn the material part of themselves. Nevertheless, they are alive, they have their new existence. How great, unfathomable and yet wonderful is the mystery of the immortality of souls, and how necessary it is to always keep it before us, because it is truly a reality that comes to modify our entire philosophy, our conception of life, our calculations, our practical behavior!.
Pope Paul VI, Homily, 1 November 1964
Trick or treating for the dead:
Being a saint involves laughter and joy:
Communion with the dead. “In full consciousness of this communion of the whole Mystical Body of Jesus Christ, the Church in its pilgrim members, from the very earliest days of the Christian religion, has honored with great respect the memory of the dead; and ‘because it is a holy and a wholesome thought to pray for the dead that they may be loosed from their sins’ she offers her suffrages for them.” Our prayer for them is capable not only of helping them, but also of making their intercession for us effective.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 958
Images of death can be very Christian:
Imagining evil and glorifying evil are not the same:
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