All Hallows’ Eve and All Saints’ Day

There are a lot of people throwing their two cents into the ring as Halloween approaches. I recently mentioned Halloween in the tongue-in-cheek post about “A Day Without A Scantily Clad Woman” this October 31st. Many reasonable Christians disagree, often with very articulate reasons, about whether or not Christians should celebrate Halloween, as it currently stands in our culture.

My personal opinion is that Halloween is a holy day, that is, a feast day in the Church. It is part and parcel of the feast of All Saints’ Day. What I think this means, is, as Catholics, we should be celebrating. We have an amazing, beautiful cloud of witnesses in the communion of the Saints, and we should take every opportunity to witness to the joy of our faith by celebrating these two wonderful feast days in ways that are appropriate for our vocation and stage in life.

I think that means that it will look different for many families. My husband and I do not have children yet, so we do not have to discern whether we should take our children trick-or-treating. We will have candy available to the neighborhood children on Saturday night, and we will also have a pumpkin carved into the likeness of a saint (yet to be determined — I better get on that!). Mostly on Saturday night we will be watching the Notre Dame game and cheering her “loyal sons onward to victory!”.

Our real celebration of All Hallows’ Eve will be on Friday night. We are having a Fall Feast dinner party, praying the Litany of the Saints, and dressing as our favorite saints as part of a party for a group of our Catholic friends. We will eat, drink, and be merry, because we’re Catholics. That’s what we do; and we don’t let the perversions of the culture stop us from having our good pumpkin beer and ginger cookies.

I have blogged previously about Meredith Gould’s wonderful book, The Catholic Home: Celebrations and Traditions For Holidays, Feast Days, and Every Day. I LOVE this book. It is chock-full of great ideas for various feast days and liturgical seasons. I thought it apt to share some of her ideas for celebrating All Hallows’ Eve and All Saints’ Day like the joyful Catholics we’re called to be. Let’s see what we can find!

All Hallows’ Eve

If you have children, consider trick-or-treating for charity! “Emphasize Christian generosity and the Catholic tradition of social justice” by having children collect change instead of candy, and donate the proceeds to Catholic Relief Services or Mercy Corps. It also avoids the sugar-induced coma that is sure to follow a night of traditional trick-or-treating. Of course, asking your children to solicit donations for charity to alleviate the suffering of children around the world, instead of soliciting candy for themselves might require an additional lesson in the redemptive value of their own suffering. But if you have wonderful children, which I’m sure all of you do, then they might be up for it.

All Saints’ Day

From The Catholic Home, “For every martyr we know about, there are thousands whose names we will never know…they too are saints who shape our faith. Over the centuries they’ve been slaughtered for inviting others to believe in God’s love evident and incarnate, Jesus Christ. They’re our cloud of witnesses. Today, on this holy day of reflection, we’re theirs.”

* Embrace the reverential impact of All Saints’ Day by listening to any of the wonderful Requiem (funeral) Masses. Some favorites are Brahms, Mozart, or Verdi.

* Make some pretzels! pretzels, you ask? Yes. In some countries of Eastern Europe, pretzels are a traditional All Saints’ Day food. The Pretzel dough is twisted into a figure eight to represent the saints. Buy dough from the store, and cut into strips. Twist each strip into a figure eight, and brush with some beaten egg and coarse salt. Bake the pretzels on a cookie sheet about 15 to 20 minutes in an oven preheated to 375 degrees. Voila!

*Of course All Saints’ Day is a great time to recall the beautiful of life of faith that “your” saint has. If you have children who have not yet chosen a saint (or are not named for one) have them choose a saint to research and share their life with the family. I remember when I chose my saint, St. Bernadette. I loved learning about her and sharing what I learned with anyone who would listen. Yeah, I was picked last for dodgeball. 🙂

*Finally, on this, the eve of All Souls’ Day, light a candle for each deceased family member you are remembering, and of course, an extra candle to remember all of the unknown martyrs.

How will your family celebrate All Hallows’ Eve and All Saint’s Day? Any great traditions we should know about? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

PS. My husband is dressing as St. Francis, and I am dressing as St. Gianna. I’ll hopefully post some pictures next week from the party!