I feel edified indeed. Thank you.
Thank you for this clarification.
No matter it’s origins Halloween today is only about candy for the kiddies and an excuse for adults to party. It’s as satanic as Groundhog Day.
No disrespect to the Irish, but why on God’s green earth would the ROMANS who had their own paganism co-opt an IRISH pagan holiday that had no connection to its citizens and whom they considered barbarians?
Plus the Samhain link is tenuous even in Ireland...since the earliest Irish martyrologies have All Saints in the *spring*. It was only moved to this date in deference to Rome.
I thought bonfire was bon (French for ‘good’) fire, as opposed to a house fire or a forest fire.
I think the important thing for Christians is to “repurpose” the three days as a spiritual event, picking and choosing among possible origins for a satisfactory whole.
1) October 31st, Halloween. The veil between the world of the living and the world of the dead become thin for the evening and the next two days. Those deceased who were not good people, or who embraced sinful habits are “the first through the door”, impatient and hurried hoping to exploit the world of the living to continue with their sins. So Halloween is a time of masks, to keep them from harassing the living. It is a time of laughter and noise, which is disruptive to haunts.
2) November 1st, All Saints’ Day. After the first wave has passed, the spirits of the Saints, the best of the righteous, return and both dispel the spirits of ill intent back to the world of the dead, and bestow blessings on the living. They impart the humble gifts of virtue and reverence. So it is a time of quietude and good feeling, to try and emulate such good examples.
3) November 2nd, All Souls’ Day. Once the Saints have “cleared the air”, comes a time to honor the spirits of the imperfect, but mostly virtuous dead, especially of beloved family members and the recently deceased. To remind them of love and reverence and joy and hope, that they may again experience them in resurrection.
In England they go “Drink or Drinking”. People keep bottles of booze near the door for the adults. When I lived there many years ago, my girlfriends British mother turned me on to it. It was easy to be hammered all night long.