https://youtu.be/1zxHCPpth64?si=Y12kcwp73e3O5Dpz

This YouTube video has got to be one of the best out there on unpacking the ins and outs of what Halloween ought to be a declaration of, and how its authentic Catholic origins can redeem it from the ghastly throes of secular reductionism.

This video also demonstrates the fact that if only more parishes here in Australia could have pastors like Fr Cristiano Bouvette as he is obviously someone who seems to have a true pastor’s heart of interpersonal relational generosity unlike the all-too-many scrooges we have been chronically blighted with here, as he said that he makes a point of giving out candy on Halloween and loves it that many kids and even parishioners come knocking on his door at Halloween so that he can give them candy. He also said that he loves it when he sees that parishioners are excited about the prospect of receiving candy from him on Halloween and he even made the point that he will gladly give candy to them at any other time also! Gee whizz, if only I could meet such a generous pastor, that would truly make my day and restore my dishevelled faith in the integrity of the Australian Catholic pastoral scene. The only criticism I will make of what he said in that regard is that I truly reckon he ought not to have said that he “likes to tell his parishioners that he will always give them much more candy than any other kid who comes to the door”! I mean, now that’s a bit scroogey in another way of showing an uncharitable kind of favouritism towards only “his parishioners”! How about demonstrating the kind of charitable generosity and hospitality towards others whom you don’t know in order that they might become people you do know and thereby be blessed to receive a gift of love from you? That way, you may just end up widening or extending the bounds of your parish in such a way that it actually grows positively, brilliantly.

And returning now to our original discourse on Halloween, it must be said too that actually, the Halloween tradition started way back in the early Church as a commemoration of the Saints who were martyred and so, in fact, the eve was particularly significant in recalling the many and often horrendous ways that these martyrs gave their lives and back in those times, different cultural traditions would depict theatrically these sacrificial self-giving acts in so many different ways and because these martyrs encountered battles with the forces of evil and opposition to the good, that is where the scary part comes into it. I mean, when we read stories of what many of these people went through, the things they often underwent were pretty grusome and so, I think there’s this kind of mystery about how could these martyrs have beheld a heroism that was so extraordinary and this though has been lost to the annals of history, this understanding of Halloween because in later centuries the Feast of All Saints was extended to include not just martyrs but ALL Saints, both martyrs and non-martyrs. And so, much of the old Church tradition of commemorating these awesome heroes of the faith had been largely diluted over time not because ALL Saints and not just martyrs were included but because the mainstream life of many faithful became more saturated with secular twists on the sacred and with more and more worldly preoccupations that society at large became that bit more disconnected from religious traditions as culturally significant, and so you have the situation of when things became more secular, the real significance of certain religious pantomimes and pagents were lost and as a result became less authentic, more or less reduced to crass secular tropes that held very little of the original substance in terms of either storyline or character, so much so that what you have left after this gross divestment from the original, is something rather disembedded, decontextualized, and largely mis-representational. Hence all the secular emphasis on grisley ghoulish fiendish clap trap because these tropes have lost the actual place these pantomime characters originally had in the cultural representations they appropriately occupied in the context of a 15th century pagent about the spiritual battle between good and evil that is essentially the backdrop of every martyr’s experience.

All in all though, I think the video, with Fr Cristiano’s explanation alongside that of interviewer, Ken Yasinski served to dismantle some of the common misconceptions that even unfortunately abound amongst contemporary Catholics about Halloween. I liked how it was also emphasized that, (in a similar manner to how Easter Sunday is the triumphant day of the Easter triduum) All Saints Day is likewise relative to Halloween since after martyrdom comes the crown of glory. And while not every Saint is a martyr, nor every person a canonized Saint, every single one of us is still called by God to be holy, and to, like Jesus, always strive to hallow God’s name – for to God alone belongs the praise and the glory.