{"id":16954,"date":"2013-10-31T05:30:41","date_gmt":"2013-10-31T09:30:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/?p=16954"},"modified":"2013-10-29T19:54:03","modified_gmt":"2013-10-29T23:54:03","slug":"a-defense-of-halloween","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2013\/10\/a-defense-of-halloween\/","title":{"rendered":"A defense of Halloween"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Thanks to Colin Cutler for alerting me to this Christian defense of Halloween<\/a>, including its scary parts.\u00a0 The author is Roman Catholic, so I\u2019m not sure I can untangle what she\u2019s doing with the Reformation Day reference!\u00a0 But still, does she make a good point?\u00a0 Or not?<\/p>\n

Danielle Bean, Don\u2019t Trade Halloween for Reformation Sunday<\/a> [sic] in Crisis (31 October 2011):<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

L<\/span>ast October, my 12-year-old son <\/span><\/strong>stood in the aisle of our local pharmacy and held up a life-like foam replica of a human skull.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow about this one?\u201d<\/p>\n

I winced. My son rolled his eyes.<\/p>\n

\u201cCome on<\/em>!\u201d he coaxed. \u201cSt. Francis had one!\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Of course he did<\/a>. I placed the skull in our cart, along with an economy-pack of vampire teeth, a tube of fake blood, and a discounted package of candy corn. Now we were ready.<\/p>\n

I sometimes struggle against my feminine impulses to \u201cmommify\u201d Halloween. Many of us moms would prefer to remove references to evil, fear, and death from our family\u2019s observances of All Hallow\u2019s Eve, much as we would prefer our sons to skip football and pursue gentler sports instead. Like chess.<\/p>\n

In our discomfort, some of us avoid trick-or-treating and scary props and costumes altogether, in favor of All Saints Day celebrations. It\u2019s the very next day, after all, and it\u2019s definitely a Catholic feast. The kids still get to dress up and eat candy, and we all get to focus on the triumph of the saints, rather than all that evil, fear, and death stuff.<\/p>\n

But we cheat ourselves when we skip over the scary and run straight to the glory. There\u2019s nothing wrong with celebrating All Saints Day, of course, but evil, fear, and death are real, and Holy Mother Church doesn\u2019t \u201cmommify\u201d any of it.<\/p>\n

When I happened upon some skull-shaped molds at a craft store once, I was confused. The clerk explained that they were for calaveras de az\u00facar<\/em>, a traditional sugar treat made to celebrate Mexico\u2019s Day of the Dead<\/a>. I don\u2019t know the details of how this feast is celebrated in modern-day Mexico, but the concept of remembering the reality of death, even with frightening images of skulls and skeletons, is undeniably rooted deep in the truths and traditions of Catholicism.<\/p>\n

The Church doesn\u2019t ignore pain, fear, evil, and death.<\/span><\/strong> It fully serves our human needs, not only as spiritual creatures, but as physical ones as well. Each of the sacraments, for example, requires our bodily participation. We don\u2019t just receive grace; we taste, touch, and feel it.<\/p>\n

Protestant celebrations of Reformation Sunday<\/a> each Halloween are a timely reminder that it\u2019s simply not Catholic <\/em>to ignore or deny the physical realities of our humanity, even when they are frightening and unpleasant. The Church certainly doesn\u2019t. She meets us right where we are, neck-deep in human weakness, and gives us a lens through which we can face the evils that we fear.<\/p>\n

Three years ago, my husband\u2019s cousin and his wife lost their four-month-old baby daughter to a rare illness. My human heart and mind reeled at the prospect of making sense of such a painful loss. I had no words, but the Church had many. Beautiful ones, in fact.<\/p>\n

The joyful Alleluias we sang and prayed at the funeral \u201cMass of the Angels\u201d stood in stark contrast to the small church filled with grief and mourning. The Church did not ignore our pain; she met us where we were, right there in it, and shined on it the light of truth and salvation.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve heard it said that one of Satan\u2019s greatest triumphs<\/span><\/strong> comes when he succeeds in convincing us that he does not exist. A properly celebrated Halloween, with its scary costumes and images of death, places evil right before our eyes. We should not celebrate Satanism, of course, but the typical Halloween props of ghosts, witches, spiders, and skeletons are appropriate manifestations of the evils that we fear. There is something authentically Catholic about spooking ourselves with these and turning them into playthings.<\/p>\n

William Peter Blatty, author of The Exorcist<\/em>, knows this. He explained that his main purpose in writing his award-winning novel and screenplay was not to frighten his audiences or encourage occultism, but to share a message of faith<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u00a0I remember thinking, \u2018Someday, somebody\u2019s got to write about this, because if an investigation were to prove that possession is real, what a help it would be to the struggling faith of possibly millions, for if there were demons, I reasoned, then why not angels? Why not God?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u00a0We must know the cold and darkness to recognize the light. When we face our fears, we can more fully appreciate Christ\u2019s victory over sin and death. At Halloween, when we dance with goblins and spook with skeletons, we put our human fears in perspective.<\/p>\n

We can laugh at weakness because we know \u00a0Christ, Who alone triumphs over the evils of sin and death. We know the weight of our words when we sing: \u201cDeath is swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?\u201d (1 Cor. 15:54-55)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote><\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thanks to Colin Cutler for alerting me to this Christian defense of Halloween, including its scary parts.\u00a0 The author is Roman Catholic, so I\u2019m not sure I can untangle what she\u2019s doing with the Reformation Day reference!\u00a0 But still, does she make a good point?\u00a0 Or not?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1281,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[982],"class_list":["post-16954","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-holidays","tag-halloween"],"yoast_head":"\nA defense of Halloween<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Thanks to Colin Cutler for alerting me to this Christian defense of Halloween, including its scary parts.\u00a0 The author is Roman Catholic, so I'm not sure I\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2013\/10\/a-defense-of-halloween\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A defense of Halloween\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Thanks to Colin Cutler for alerting me to this Christian defense of Halloween, including its scary parts.\u00a0 The author is Roman Catholic, so I'm not sure I\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2013\/10\/a-defense-of-halloween\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Cranach\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/cranachblog\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-10-31T09:30:41+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2013-10-29T23:54:03+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Gene Veith\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Gene Veith\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2013\/10\/a-defense-of-halloween\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2013\/10\/a-defense-of-halloween\/\",\"name\":\"A defense of Halloween\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2013-10-31T09:30:41+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2013-10-29T23:54:03+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/#\/schema\/person\/f9ca8670bcc51908a78994c0484dbfa1\"},\"description\":\"Thanks to Colin Cutler for alerting me to this Christian defense of Halloween, including its scary parts.\u00a0 The author is Roman Catholic, so I'm not sure I\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2013\/10\/a-defense-of-halloween\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2013\/10\/a-defense-of-halloween\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2013\/10\/a-defense-of-halloween\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"A defense of Halloween\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/\",\"name\":\"Cranach\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/#\/schema\/person\/f9ca8670bcc51908a78994c0484dbfa1\",\"name\":\"Gene Veith\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/054d79faea5d476edd8f99e5f14fb17f?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/054d79faea5d476edd8f99e5f14fb17f?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Gene Veith\"},\"description\":\"Gene Edward Veith, Jr. is a writer and retired literature professor, serving as Provost Emeritus at Patrick Henry College. 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