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Traditional Catholic Faith => General Discussion => Topic started by: Timothy on October 03, 2013, 07:48:25 AM

Title: Halloween?
Post by: Timothy on October 03, 2013, 07:48:25 AM
Should children participate in Halloween activities?  Of course, I don't mean the truly evil and demonic stuff that goes on, but would you let your children dress up as cowboys, princesses, or something else innocuous, and go trick-or-treating?  I've heard some parents have their children dress up as Saints.
Title: Halloween?
Post by: Tiffany on October 03, 2013, 08:13:08 AM
You could celebrate All Saints Day or have a Fall Festival if you wanted to do candy.
Title: Halloween?
Post by: Timothy on October 03, 2013, 01:48:29 PM
Quote from: Tiffany
You could celebrate All Saints Day or have a Fall Festival if you wanted to do candy.


So, I take it you would not allow your children to trick-or-treat on the night of October 31, even if their costumes were otherwise acceptable?
Title: Halloween?
Post by: Mabel on October 03, 2013, 03:49:03 PM
We do not. We have our own party the next day. I suppose if my neighbors were more naturally good and there were not as many public school kids, or even if I liked and trusted my neighbors, I might consider it. For us, it opens to many doors that we would like to keep closed.
Title: Halloween?
Post by: Nadir on October 03, 2013, 04:03:10 PM
We never heard of Halloween as children in Australia. Now thanks to the American influence through the media it is "celebrated" and actively promoted, and by people who have no idea what or who is a saint.

I would have thought that the idea of trick or treat was a form of threatening behaviour - Give me this or you'll pay. I know that one All Saints Eve a friend had a raw egg thown on her car when the door wasn't answered. What is holy about the practice of going door to door and asking for things? I'm dead against it.

Not that we shouldn't celebrate in a Catholic way the Eve and the Feast of All Saints.
Title: Halloween?
Post by: Cera on October 03, 2013, 04:08:19 PM
Please take time during this satanic time, including the weeks leading up to "Halloween" to pray for the children who are being tortured and sɛҳuąƖly assaulted as part of this "celebration."
Title: Halloween?
Post by: Ambrose on October 03, 2013, 04:09:07 PM
The secret is to keep all lights out during peak hours and they will go away.  
Title: Halloween?
Post by: Elizabeth on October 03, 2013, 04:13:24 PM
I hate Halloween more each year.  It seems as if it is becoming the national holiday of America. I was already sick of it before we had kids.

 But, circuмstances force me to allow my kids to go trick-or-treating.

So, we bear in mind that Halloween is the Vigil of All Saint's Day.  This means no candy until the next day.  We drive to the nicest, safest, calmest neighborhood possible--where the adults opening the doors handing out candy are usually older, very conscious of being kind, polite and generous.  The candy givers appreciate the good manners my kids show.  We never, ever knock on any door where the decorations look satanic or in "off" in any way.  Many store-bought costumes are so horrible, our kids rake in extra candy because the people seem to like the old-fashioned kind.

So, that's just me making the best of something I don't like to do.  If I were a millionaire, I'd jet off to the islands for that night.







Title: Halloween?
Post by: Cantarella on October 03, 2013, 05:12:55 PM
The focus should be in All Saint's Day, not Halloween. Take the opportunity to make it a special day for your children. A day in which we celebrate the saints, those wonderful soldiers of Christ.

We will be celebrating this day in our chapel. The children are supposed to select a saint, dress up as him / her, and play the role during an activity contest. The other children will guess who the saint is.  The winner will get a prize. The others will also have treats.

Title: Halloween?
Post by: Tiffany on October 03, 2013, 05:33:22 PM
Quote from: Timothy
Quote from: Tiffany
You could celebrate All Saints Day or have a Fall Festival if you wanted to do candy.


So, I take it you would not allow your children to trick-or-treat on the night of October 31, even if their costumes were otherwise acceptable?


I wouldn't but at the same time I probably wouldn't make a big fuss if grandma wanted to take them around the block during daylight hours. We always did a fall festival at a protestant church as an alternative.
Title: Halloween?
Post by: OHCA on October 03, 2013, 06:36:03 PM
Quote from: Tiffany
I wouldn't but at the same time I probably wouldn't make a big fuss if grandma wanted to take them around the block during daylight hours. We always did a fall festival at a protestant church as an alternative.

Around where I live, it is the fundamentalist protestants who are most opposed to Halloween and their reason is what they cite as it's Catholic roots.
Title: Halloween?
Post by: Frances on October 03, 2013, 06:41:28 PM
Halloween has NO religious meaning in NYC except for Satanists, maybe. All Saints Day has been hijacked by the fαɢs.  They use it to mock Christians, Catholics, in particular.  I went once, out of curiosity, as a Protestant, to the Greenwich Village Halloween parade.  Had to leave after about five minutes.  It was a gross public display of blasphemy and perversion.  If I ever go again, it will be with a large group of Catholics equipped with Our Lady's Rosary.  The funding for it this year has fallen on hard times.  Please pray it is cancelled!  Our Lady of Victory, St. Michael, pray for us!
I have no children, but if I did, they would not go trick or treating.  My neighborhood has many Muslims who despise Halloween and most people live in apartment buildings, so nobody goes trick or treating in residential areas.  Some businesses do participate.  If so, they place a sign on the sidewalk indicating they are giving out candy.  I suppose it's a way to get parents to come in and buy merchandise.  A lot of vandalism and general mischief occurs at night by teens, gangs.  I always leave my car locked in a friend's garage and take the subway to work on All Saint's Day. In the past, I've had nasty things painted on it, windows smashed, radio stolen, etc.  It's a good night to stay home and have a holy hour of reparation.  My school where I teach, nondenominational, basically Protestant, does not observe Halloween.
Title: Halloween?
Post by: Tiffany on October 03, 2013, 06:56:37 PM
Quote from: OHCA
Quote from: Tiffany
I wouldn't but at the same time I probably wouldn't make a big fuss if grandma wanted to take them around the block during daylight hours. We always did a fall festival at a protestant church as an alternative.

Around where I live, it is the fundamentalist protestants who are most opposed to Halloween and their reason is what they cite as it's Catholic roots.


My protestant relatives did not allow any witchcraft play or on tv and I knew to stay away from it. I remember when I first started homeschooling being overwhelmed by the amount of witchcraft and sorcery references I found in children's books.
Title: Halloween?
Post by: Sigismund on October 03, 2013, 08:13:52 PM
My kids all went trick or treating.  My grand kids don't.  My children have more sense than I did on this issue.  However, it was a different world then, even though it was not really so long ago.  
Title: Halloween?
Post by: poche on October 03, 2013, 10:53:52 PM
Quote from: Timothy
Should children participate in Halloween activities?  Of course, I don't mean the truly evil and demonic stuff that goes on, but would you let your children dress up as cowboys, princesses, or something else innocuous, and go trick-or-treating?  I've heard some parents have their children dress up as Saints.

Why not dress them up like saints?
Title: Halloween?
Post by: Kazimierz on October 04, 2013, 12:46:35 AM
A Traditional Catholic perspective.......

Take a practical approach based on the Catholic principles therein...


Would I go treat or treating, if I had kids? Not where I live, unless I could carry openly, and if not then concealed. (Living in the wrong country for this though.)

Quote
HALLOWEEN

        The question often arises about the celebration of Halloween by
Catholics.  Is it, for instance, "pagan" to dress up and go about as ghosts
and goblins?  The question often comes up because many modern Christians
(mostly non-Catholic ones) believe that Halloween has something to do with
worshipping the devil and participating in witchcraft.  The truth is that the
origins of Halloween are rooted deeply in the theology and popular customs of
Catholics.

        It is a revision of actual history to say that our modern celebration
of Halloween has origins in Druid customs.  It is true that the ancient Celts
celebrated a major feast (the Celtic New Year) on October 31st, but the fact
is that they celebrated a festival on the last day of almost every month.

        Halloween, a contraction of "All Hollows Eve," falls on October 31st
because the Feast of All Saints or "All Hallows" falls on November 1st.  The
feast in honor of all the Saints used to be celebrated on May 13th, but Pope
Gregory III, in 731, moved it to November 1st, the dedication day of All
Saints Chapel in St. Peter's in Rome.  This feast spread throughout the
world.  In 998, St. Odilo, the abbot of the powerful monastery of Cluny in
France, added a celebration on November 2nd. This was a day of prayer for the
souls of all the faithful departed.  Therefore, the Church had a feast of the
Saints and those in Purgatory.

        It was the Irish Catholics who came up with the idea to remember
somehow those souls who did not live by the Faith in this life.  It became
customary for these Irish to bang on pots and pans on All Hallow's Eve to let
the damned know that they were not forgotten.  In Ireland, then, ALL the dead
came to be remembered.  This, however, is still not exactly like our
celebration of Halloween.  On Halloween we also dress up in costumes.

        This practice arose in France during the 14th and 15th centuries.  
During the horrible bubonic plague, the Black Death, Europe lost half of her
population.  Artists depicted this on walls to remind us of our own
mortality.  These pictures and representations are known as the "Dance of
Death" or "Dance Macabre."  These figures were commonly painted on cemetery
walls and showed  the devil leading a daisy chain of people into the tomb.  
Sometimes the dance was re-enacted on All Soul's Day as a living tableau,
with people dressed up as the dead.  But the French dressed up on All Souls,
not Halloween, and the Irish, who celebrated Halloween, did not dress up.

        The two were brought together in the colonies of North America during
the 18th century, when Irish and French Catholics began to intermarry.  Thus
the two celebrations became mingled, and we began dressing up on Halloween.  
It is, as we can see, a very "American" holiday, but Catholic as well.

        "Trick-or-Treating" is a very odd addition to Halloween.  It is the
most American aspect of the holiday, and is the (unwilling) contribution of
English Catholics.

        Guy Fawkes Day became a great celebration against Catholics in
England.  It celebrated the day the plot to blow up Parliament and King James
I was discovered.  This was on November 5, 1605.  Guy Fawkes was the rather
reckless man guarding the gunpowder.  He was arrested and hanged.  During
these times of persecution of the Catholic Church, bands of revelers would
wear masks and visit Catholics in the night demanding they be given cakes and
beer.

        Guy Fawkes Day arrived in the American colonies with the first
English settlers.  Old King James had long been forgotten, but "Trick-or-
Treating" was too much fun to give up.  Eventually, it moved to the
Irish/French Catholic masquerade.  This practice of "Trick-or-Treating" was
simply moved to coincide with the Catholic celebration involving dressing up.  
The ancient Druids did contribute the candy, which was used to welcome the
good spirits, and masks (jack o'lanterns), which were used to scare away the
evil spirits.

       Halloween can still serve the purpose of reminding us about Hell and
how to avoid it.  Halloween is also a day to prepare us to remember those who
have gone before us in Faith, those already in Heaven and those still
suffering in Purgatory.  Halloween is a time to let people know about our
Catholic roots and significance.  (Fr. Scott Archer)

       Catholic parents who are not comfortable with the worst secular
aspects of Halloween, which are admittedly increasing, can avail themselves
of alternative activities on that day:  family prayer and fasting for the
Vigil of All Saints Day, visitations of houses in the garments of non-
devilish personae, the reading aloud of stories of the Saints or of seasonal
literature such as Edgar Allen Poe's "The Masque of the Red Death" and
Washington Irving's "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow", and the playing of
seasonal music such as Saint-Saens "Danse Macabre," Modest Moussorgsky's
"Night on Bald Mountain," and Sergei Rachmaninoff's "Isle of the Dead".

        A word of caution, however.  The Church has always condemned as sins
against the First Commandment, and thus cautioned her children to stay far
away from, astrology, charms, divination, fortune-telling, magic, ouija
boards, sorcery, spells, witchcraft, and other occult activities, even if
they are treated in a trivial or jesting fashion.

        St. Thomas Aquinas says that it is not permitted to Christians even
to dabble in such things:  "Man has not been entrusted with power over the
demons to employ them to whatsoever purpose he will.  On the contrary, it is
appointed that he should wage war against the demons.  Hence, in no way is it
lawful for man to make use of the demons' help by compacts -- either tacit or
express" (II-II, Q96, Art. 3).

        We remember too the the Prayer to St. Michael against "Satanam
aliosque spiritus malignos qui ad perditionem animarum pervagantur in mundo"
[Satan and the other evil spirits who roam in the world for the ruin of
souls].  As in all things, parents must be sure to teach their children the
proper balance in such matters, erring neither on the side of defect or
excess.


Title: Halloween?
Post by: Marlelar on October 04, 2013, 01:04:44 AM
Living in a very plain and safe neighborhood we have done the door to door thing, the fall festival thing, and the Saints Party.  My kids enjoyed all and all worked well.  I think it depends on your neighborhood, ours never had anything "evil" decorations. The phrase "trick or treat" was never used as a threat.  Use your own good judgement.

Marsha
Title: Halloween?
Post by: Nadir on October 04, 2013, 02:59:39 AM
Quote from: Elizabeth
But, circuмstances force me to allow my kids to go trick-or-treating.


How so  :confused1:
Title: Halloween?
Post by: Stubborn on October 04, 2013, 03:57:42 AM
Quote from: poche
Quote from: Timothy
Should children participate in Halloween activities?  Of course, I don't mean the truly evil and demonic stuff that goes on, but would you let your children dress up as cowboys, princesses, or something else innocuous, and go trick-or-treating?  I've heard some parents have their children dress up as Saints.


Why not dress them up like saints?


Or dress them up as.............

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/12396740/1982%20small.jpg)

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/12396740/1983small.jpg)
Title: Halloween?
Post by: Mama ChaCha on October 04, 2013, 10:29:15 AM
Adorable!!   :applause:
I love it!! My son wants to go as St. Michael, since he's the "coolest" angel.
He also wants to know if any angels have bows and arrows?? DD wants to be any angel with a bow and arrow. (She doesn't have a sword.)
Title: Halloween?
Post by: parentsfortruth on October 04, 2013, 10:43:18 AM
My mother in law has always been so pushy on Halloween. I never wanted to dress them up or have them trick-or-treat, but every year (still waiting for this year) she mails something trying to defend it as really Catholic. She doesn't find any of the costumes, even the most grotesque, to be offensive, and laughs at them with glee. I decided I wasn't going to argue with her about it, and my husband takes the kids out, and of course, he obliges me to hand out candy to the trick-or-treaters too. Sigh.
Title: Halloween?
Post by: CathMomof7 on October 04, 2013, 02:12:04 PM
We used to participate in Halloween.  But a few years ago, even before we found traditional Catholicism, I started to be really bothered by the whole display.  It started for me when our mayor actually "moved" trick or treat night.  That year Halloween was on Saturday, but he moved it to Wednesday.  He actually told the whole area that no one could trick or treat on Halloween.  What the hay?  So I started thinking about what it means to Americans.  It means absolutely nothing to them.  It is merely a time to buy the most ridiculous and macabre items to decorate their lawns with--to have some display of the wicked.  Last year, as I suspect this year will be, there was nothing but zombies.  Zombies coming out of people's yards, zombie children, zombie races, zombie parades.  Children only want candy and I watch as people drive over car loads of kids and drop them off and wait at some central location.  It means absolutely nothing.

We just don't participate anymore.  In fact, most people on our street don't participate either, for various reasons.  We just don't turn on our lights and we don't decorate at all, except for a jack-o-lantern.  Instead, we have a party at home with pizza and too much junk food.  We get out old pictures of our family and talk about their lives.  We pray a rosary for their souls in purgatory.  

Sometime during the month, we usually have an All Saints Party for the children, which they all enjoy anyway.

One year, we actually went to the cemetery and lit candles.

We've just decided to leave Halloween for the pagans.  We will just celebrate All Saints and All Souls Day.  
Title: Halloween?
Post by: bg2 on October 04, 2013, 02:24:36 PM
Most priests that I know discourage it. Going trick or treating isn't a sin necessarily, it just exposes children to a rather twisted (C.S. Lewis would use the word "bent", which I think is more accurate in this case) modern perversion of the supernatural idea.
Title: Halloween?
Post by: Elizabeth on October 04, 2013, 06:02:09 PM
Quote from: parentsfortruth
My mother in law has always been so pushy on Halloween. I never wanted to dress them up or have them trick-or-treat, but every year (still waiting for this year) she mails something trying to defend it as really Catholic. She doesn't find any of the costumes, even the most grotesque, to be offensive, and laughs at them with glee. I decided I wasn't going to argue with her about it, and my husband takes the kids out, and of course, he obliges me to hand out candy to the trick-or-treaters too. Sigh.


That's pretty much my story, except my husband thinks they should be allowed to go trick-or-treating.  (maybe because he loves candy so much!)  We have to chose our battles wisely.  I think old people feel like anyone who would forbid their grandkids to go get candy is just cruel and mean.  They just don't get it.

On the good side, we ended up accidentally changing the dress code at their house, by always dressing nice and modest.  The grandparents are always well-dressed, but the in-laws and cousins not.  G-ma put her foot down and now everyone looks great, dressed up all the time.  Dressing modestly was a battle that was not up for debate.

I can't stand being home alone on Halloween.  So we all go now, to a different neighborhood.
Title: Halloween?
Post by: Elizabeth on October 04, 2013, 06:04:48 PM
Quote from: Nadir
Quote from: Elizabeth
But, circuмstances force me to allow my kids to go trick-or-treating.


How so  :confused1:


see above

and who knows, maybe this year they won't go?
Title: Halloween?
Post by: ClarkSmith on October 05, 2013, 03:20:39 PM
 Halloween was once observed as the Triduum of All Hallows: All Hallows' Eve , All Saints' Day,  and All Soul's Day. Hallowmas is a very important time of the year.

Trick or treating does have Christians roots  . It was more like Christmas caroling, though. Children went door to door singing and saying prayers for the dead. People would hand out treats called soul cakes. Each soul cake represented a soul being freed from Purgatory.    

 
 
Title: Halloween?
Post by: Frances on October 07, 2013, 04:51:36 PM
In 1971, the year I was in 6th grade, Halloween became unsafe for children to go trick-or-treating in my neighborhood.  There were incidents of Ex-Lax and LSD-laced candy, apples with needles in them given out.  Instead of flouring or strewing tp from trees, the older teens turned to stabbings, tire slashings, spray painted ethnic slurs, assault and robbery.  My friends and I were chased by some older teen boys, all strangers to us, who succeeded in spraying us with black enamel spray-paint and Nair, a hair-remover product.  Prior to this, Halloween was nothing more than a day to get dressed up in a homemade costume and collect a lot of candy.  Two years later, 1973, a brother and sister were abducted by four teens in a van.  They verbally threatened them before dumping them off about five miles away.  When arrested, they said it "was a harmless prank."  The practice has never revived and my nephews who are growing up in the same house have NEVER gone trick-or-treating.  They go to organised parties at school or the community center instead.  All religious connection is long lost.  It didn't exist in the 1960s to my memory.  We went to Mass on All Saints' Day when I was very young, but I never connected the two days as having anything to do with one another.
Title: Halloween?
Post by: Marlelar on October 07, 2013, 07:20:28 PM
Quote from: ClarkSmith
Halloween was once observed as the Triduum of All Hallows: All Hallows' Eve , All Saints' Day,  and All Soul's Day. Hallowmas is a very important time of the year.

Trick or treating does have Christians roots  . It was more like Christmas caroling, though. Children went door to door singing and saying prayers for the dead. People would hand out treats called soul cakes. Each soul cake represented a soul being freed from Purgatory.  


What a loss that it is not observed this way anymore.

Marsha
Title: Halloween?
Post by: MaterDominici on October 07, 2013, 09:42:01 PM
Quote from: Cantarella
Ooops Ok! Just wanted to share what I thought it was a remarkable costume and I will subscribe to her blog too   :smile:


Her children always have great costumes. Take a gander at some of the others if you're ever in need of inspiration:
http://showerofroses.blogspot.com/search/label/Costumes
Title: Halloween?
Post by: Cantarella on October 07, 2013, 09:43:56 PM
Wonderful! This looks like another great blog to follow. I just subscribed too.
Title: Halloween?
Post by: pickoverthecliff on October 08, 2013, 11:41:01 PM
Towards the end of my Novus Ordo days, I started to wonder why there was so much enthusiastic embrace of Halloween by the N.O. and joined a Facebook group, "Christians against Halloween!" The N.O. was sloppy about clear evils associated with Halloween.

I'm refreshed to read different people's contributions in this thread. I think this time of year is a good time to meditate on death, and the fear of hellfire and the demonic seem like they should be encouraged this time of year. I remember last year, I believe I watched "The Exorcism of Emily Rose" with a trad. Cath. family. It's a good season to die to self and also a time both to make war on demons and protect against them. This is a major season of demonic activity, right, around the pagan celebration of the solstice and all that?

Not sure how this fits in, but there is also the festival of Samhain:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samhain

In general, holidays have in part lost their sparkle and richness of expression, as far as I've observed, in recent years. Well, maybe it's partly because I'm not a kid anymore, but it just seems like the culture is more degenerate and anti-Christian (anti-Catholic) more.

Satan's hiding more - expressing himself more wickedly in the world, but when people see it in a film they dissociate it as being "simply a metaphor".

Anyway, thanks all for your contributions! I know at least this year I'll be fasting which I don't think I've ever done!