Halloween reminds us that…
1. Once a year your neighbors, even if complete strangers the other 364 days of the year, are invited to come to your home, usually at night, and are encouraged to bring their kids dressed as someone else. You are obligated by custom to supply them with sugary sweets that could lead to tooth decay, obesity and possible diabetes. But you will have been a good neighbor in the process of doing it.
2. You too can be creative. Kids, parents and anyone else get a chance to cosplay for the neighborhood or people at the Halloween party for all to see your fantastically designed well put together awesome costume. Or you can be lazy and just buy a cheap costume at Walmart. I once went to an adult Halloween party and didn’t realize others were wearing costumes. I went into the parking lot, put my clothes inside out and backwards and went as Backwards Man. I won a prize for my quick spontaneous creativity.
3. Even Canonized Saints have a playful side and can tap into the Whatever Biblical Principle and have the type of fun that everyone on the planet knows how to do.
Whatever is true,
Whatever is noble,
Whatever is right,
Whatever is pure,
Whatever is lovely,
Whatever is admirable—
Anything that is excellent or praiseworthy
think about such things.
Philippians 4:8-New International Version
St. Carlo Acutis as Spider-Man
4. Christendom is heavily divided. Back in 1517 on this date Augustinian Friar Martin Luther definitely posted his 95 Theses, possibly on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg. This lead to the Protestant Reformation causing Christians who hopefully all loved Christ to come to different conclusions about how to love, serve and follow Him. This sad division is still in effect today but some have taken this as an opportunity to try to foster greater unity especially Augustinian Pope Leo XIV. Just 3 days prior to Halloween on October 28, 1965 – Pope Paul VI promulgated Nostra aetate, by which the Roman Catholic Church officially recognized the legitimacy of non-Christian faiths.
5. Libraries are worth preserving and keeping around. Leiden University Library is the set of libraries of Leiden University, founded on October 31, 1575 in Leiden, Netherlands. Their dedication to being a great library includes massive holdings of five million volumes, one million e-books, ninety thousand e-journals, two thousand current paper journals, and three thousand cuneiform tablets. The library manages large collections on Indonesia and the Caribbean, and curates seven entries in UNESCO‘s international and Dutch Memory of the World Register. This library has given some librarians a dream come true or is a true nightmare for those who have to put back material.
The following day on All Saints Day November 1, 1897, the first Library of Congress building opens its doors to the public; the library had previously been housed in the Congressional Reading Room in the U.S. Capitol.
6. Nevada, one of the furthest states away from the East Coast, is not one of the later states to be included in the Union. In fact it was during the American Civil War on October 31, 1864 that Nevada was admitted as the 36th U.S. state. A few days later on All Souls Day November 2, 1889, North Dakota and South Dakota are admitted as the 39th and 40th U.S. states.
7. You’re going to die. The Capuchin Crypt is a reminder of that fact. The Capuchin Crypt is a small space comprising several tiny chapels located beneath the church of Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccinion the Via Veneto near Piazza Barberini in Rome, Italy. It contains the skeletal remains of 3,700 bodies believed to be Capuchin friars buried by their order. The order insists that the display is not meant to be macabre, but a silent reminder of the swift passage of life on Earth and of mortality.
The Capuchin Bone Church and More Patrons’ Questions – Jimmy Akin’s Mysterious World
8. That any day could be your last day. In the same year that the Wright Brothers fly the first powered, controlled flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina on October 31, 1903 the Purdue Wreck took place. It was a railroad train collision in Indianapolis Indiana that killed 17 people, including 14 players of the Purdue University football team. This same incident also reminds us that death eludes some people. During the collision, one member of the team miraculously landed on his feet and was unharmed after being thrown out a window. Also team captain and future Indiana governor Harry G. Leslie was initially thought to have died in the accident, but was later revived. A good ghost story is waiting to be written about this incident.
2 days earlier on October 29, 1960, an airplane carrying the Cal Poly football team crashes on takeoff in Toledo, Ohio. Among the survivors was quarterback Ted Tollner, who would later become the head coach at USC and San Diego State.
9. Transportation is important. How else are you going to drive to other neighborhoods to get candy or to get to Mass for the holy day of obligation the following day on All Saints Day? In the year before the first World War and year after the sinking of the Titanic in 1913 the Dedication of the Lincoln Highway, the first automobile highway across United States happened on Halloween day, October 31. Also, once again in Indiana, there was the Indianapolis Streetcar Strike in which a subsequent riot begins.
10. Over a century ago a galaxy of candy products that you can give out at Halloween made its way to our planet with the creation of the Milky Way in 1923 by Frank C. Mars and originally manufactured in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
11. Abraham Lincoln is important enough to be carved in stone along with George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt. In the year the U.S. entered WW II on October 31, 1941, after 14 years of work, Mount Rushmore is completed. That is the 2nd important historical American landmark to associate with Abraham Lincoln on the day kids go out for Trick or Treating. Abraham Lincoln is an acceptable Halloween costume. But wait there is still more Abe Lincoln Halloween related material to come. Just 3 days prior to Halloween on October 28,1886 US president Grover Cleveland dedicated another important historical American landmark; the Statue of Liberty.
12. There is a perfect Halloween/All Saints Day movie to watch. All Saints Day is the following day on November 1st. That is the Academy Award winning movie ‘The Song of Berndtite’. St. Bernadette is one of the saints included in All Saints Day. The queen of all Saints, the mother of God, Mary most holy, appeared to her as an otherworldly apparition, a person from beyond the grave. And one of the stars of the movie was horror icon Vincent Price as Vital Dutour, Imperial Prosecutor. The movie also reminds us that Christmas is on its way in less then 2 months as this movie originally premiered on December 25, 1943.
Vincent a spoken-word sequence on Michael Jackson’s Thriller song which is popular around Halloween.
13. Abe Lincoln’s spirit is heavily associated with Halloween as seen in the two previous mentions of him. They were monumental, this is spooky. According to Wikipedia A phantom funeral train is said to run regularly from Washington, D.C. to Springfield, Illinois, around the time of the anniversary of Abraham Lincoln‘s death, stopping watches and clocks in surrounding areas as it passes.[22]
14. Humor can overcome killer monstrous things that want to do you harm. The comedy team of Abbot and Costello made several films in which they went up against several creatures and persons ready to devour their life. There were ghosts, the killer who played Frankenstein in the 1931 version of the tale by Mary Shelly, The Mummy, The Invisible Man, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Creature From the Black Lagoon and in their hit film Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein (June 1948) the Creature himself, Dracula and The Wolfman. Comedy Beats Monsters.
15. Disney is capable of making a high quality spooky ghostly animated Halloweenish style film. In 1949 it brought the classic Legend of Sleepy Hollow to larger than life on the big screen with The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad. The anthology animated Disney film consists of two segments: the first based on Kenneth Grahame‘s 1908 children’s novel The Wind in the Willows and narrated by Basil Rathbone, and the second based on Washington Irving‘s 1820 short story “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” and narrated by none other than Mr. Christmas himself Bing Crosby. The production was supervised by Ben Sharpsteen, and was directed by Jack Kinney, Clyde Geronimi, and James Algar.
Along with Irving’s companion piece “Rip Van Winkle“, “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” is among the earliest examples of American fiction with enduring popularity, especially during Halloween because of a character known as the Headless Horseman believed to be a Hessian soldier who was decapitated by a cannonball in battle.
While were on the subject of scary productions the day before on October 30, 1938, Orson Welles managed to broadcast a radio adaptation of H. G. Wells’s The War of the Worlds, that caused a massive panic in some of the audience in the United States.
16. This widely celebrated h0liday can produce a Halloween hit song. Bobby “Boris” Pickett‘s monster hit The Monster Mash single was number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart on October 20–27, 1962 just before Halloween.
“Monster Mash” has sustained a lasting impact in various recordings, film inclusions, and re-releases since its initial release. In 2021, nearly 60 years after its release, “Monster Mash” re-entered the Billboard Hot 100 chart at number 37. As of 2023, the song was generating $1 million annually in royalties. The song is on the only recorded album by Bobby The Original Monster Mash (1962)
17. Any holiday is better with Peanuts. The Peanuts characters first appeared in comic strips on October 2, 1950 and made their way onto TV December 9, 1965 with the Emmy award winning A Charlie Brown Christmas followed by Charlie Brown’s All Stars! on June 8, 1966. On October 27 of that year Charlie Brown, Snoopy and the gang turned out their 3rd TV special and 2nd holiday special It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. Peanuts would continue to grace audiences with other holiday offerings including Thanksgiving, New Years Day, Valentine’s Day, Easter and Arbor Day. The success of It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown led to the development of the Halloween special as a television genre. In this special we learn that
- Giving out Rocks at Halloween is an option.
- There is a potential rival to Santa Claus during the end of the year celebrations.
- Putting on a simple sheet to be a ghost can still be a failure as a costume.
- Hanging out in pumpkin patch on a cold fall night can be a exciting, possibly romantic and disappointing experience.
- Halloween is a perfect time to teach children about military aviation history.
18. Evil is real. Demons are real. And sometimes they possess people as portrayed in the movie The Exorcist (1973). The best cure for this spiritual disease is a man in persona Christi who has the power to vanquish the evil inside of you.
Over the years I have viewed this film several times and I will say that it is one of the movies that sparked my interest writing and film production. The Exorcist is in part a study in contrasts. As you watch the film you see the battle between good and evil, as well as a brilliant balance between scenes shot in the dark versus scenes shot in the light. This cinematic dance of light and shadow acts as an unconscious (or maybe it was a conscious decision?) representation of the struggle that is about to ensue.
A Non-Practicing Catholic Reviews The Exorcist | Guest Contributor
19. The veil between the living and the dead is hidden, but thin, and ghost stories can be crafted into a eerie and exhilarating tale that surprises you. The best example of this is M. Night Schlyman’s hit film The Sixth Sence (1999) in which a young boy sees and talks to ghosts. The film is famous for it’s surprise twist ending. For us Catholics it reminds us that there are souls undergoing a purgation in which prayers help ease that transition between heaven and earth.
20. Abraham Lincoln continues to be associated with Halloween related awesomeness. He is the badass action hero in Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter, an alternate history biographical action horror mashup novel by Seth Grahame-Smith, released on March 2, 2010 in which Honest Abe tracks down and kills vampires. He also gave us Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2009)
21. The day after Halloween is All Saints Day followed by All Souls Day on November 2. On Halloween Day 2011 the global population of humans reached seven billion. This day is now recognized by the United Nations as the Day of Seven Billion. All those souls plus all the souls of history will one day stand before God. And we can pray for them all on All Souls Day.
22. Tom Hanks is a creative comedic genius that can take something so bizarre and weird and turn it into something hilarious and memorable. On October 22, 2016, on Saturday Night Live Tom Hanks appeared as David S. Pumpkins in a skit about an unusual guy in a haunted ride. You honestly have to watch it to get it. Any Questions?
23. There are always room for more Halloween tales told from a Catholic perspective.
There is something more enthralling than the usual tales of vampires, monsters, and ghouls. In All Hallows’ Eve, bestselling author Anthony DeStefano takes young readers on a lighthearted but spine-tingling journey that unveils the true spiritual meaning of Halloween.
Join a group of friends as they encounter Hulga May, a mysterious woman who sweeps and prays in a dark cemetery every Halloween night. As Hulga shares her haunting tale, children and adults alike will learn about the profound significance of prayer, penance, and the souls in Purgatory. This finely crafted story blends eerie suspense with heartfelt lessons, making it ideal for young readers in search of both thrills and wisdom.
For too long, Christians have allowed the secular culture to dominate what is essentially a deeply religious holiday. With this story, DeStefano reclaims Halloween by placing its emphasis not on evil spirits, monsters, and pagan and occult practices but where it belongs—on the countless souls who have died in God’s grace and long for deliverance into the Heavenly realms. -Amazon Description
24. Halloween is just one of three days in encompassing the triduum of All Saints’ Eve (Halloween), All Saints’ Day (All Hallows’) and All Souls’ Day, as well as the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church (observed on the first Sunday of November) and Remembrance Sunday (observed on the second Sunday in November) in some traditions.[known as Allhallowtide. So when someone says that Halloween is a holiday of evil and mayhem, you can remind them its not.
We’ve grown to think of our American experience of Halloween—with its focus on horror themes, costumes, candy, and decorations—as normative. In fact, it’s a product of the 20th century media-saturated consumer-oriented appropriation of Catholic feasts for mass consumption, which strips things of their true meaning. Like secular Christmas and Easter, it’s a hollowed out thing that emphasizes pleasure while downplaying devotion.
Yet tantalizing hints of its genuine origins remain, and the Catholic calendar continues to focus doggedly on its real meaning.
Allhallowtide is actually a kind of triduum: three days of commemoration that includes All Hallows Eve (October 31, shortened Hallowe’en), All Saints Day (All Hallows Day, November 1), and All Souls Day (November 2). As with other major feasts, celebration of All Saints Day begins on the vigil, which is why secular culture celebrates Halloween on the night of October 31st, but then does nothing on the actual feast days that follow. –The Season of the Dead – by Deacon Tom – Weird Catholic
25. Allhallowtide have their own food and song. A Soul cake is a small round cake with sweet spices, which resembles a shortbread biscuit. It is traditionally made for Halloween, All Saints’ Day, and All Souls’ Day to commemorate the dead in many Christian traditions. The cakes, often simply referred to as souls, are given out to soulers (mainly consisting of children and the poor) who go from door to door during the days of Allhallowtide, singing and saying prayers “for the souls of the givers and their friends”, especially the souls of deceased relatives, thought to be in the intermediate state between Earth and Heaven.
The English “Souling Song” is categorised as number 304 in the Roud Folk Song Index. The song varies from place to place, and is also known as “Catherning”, “Stafford Begging Song” and “Caking Song”.
In 1963, the American folk group Peter, Paul and Mary recorded this 1891 Cheshire version published by Lucy Broadwood as “A’ Soalin”, including all the verses as well as parts of “Hey, Ho, Nobody Home” and “God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen” (which are traditionally associated with Christmas). The musical arrangement (including the accompaniment, chords, and interpolations from the other traditional songs) is quite different from the published 1893 version and was copyrighted by members of the group.
A soul! a soul! a soul-cake!
Please good Missis, a soul-cake!
An apple, a pear, a plum, or a cherry,
Any good thing to make us all merry.
One for Peter, two for Paul
Three for Him who made us all.
Please Note: Some descriptions are taken from Wikipedia.
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