[Salvation]

 

RECOMMENDED READING:

Holy Bible (Catholic edition)
Catechism of the Catholic Church
Vatican II Documents
Patrick Madrid, Any Friend of God’s is a Friend of Mine

Hahn and Suprenant, eds., Catholic for a Reason: Scripture and the Mystery of the Family of God
Leon Suprenant and Philip Gray, Faith Facts: Answers to Catholic Questions
Ted Sri, Mystery of the Kingdom: On the Gospel of Matthew
Leon Suprenant, ed., Servants of the Gospel
Most Rev. Thomas J. Tobin, Without a Doubt: Bringing Faith to Life

[GrannyAnn]

I don’t “celebrate” Halloween. I participate in what is now the “custom” of Halloween. I could care less about what it meant a gazillion years ago.

Here is what we do: dress up the kids, get the lawn chairs and a bowl of candy, sit outside, drink beer, hand out candy and tell little kids how cute they are in their costumes.

[Fiji Hill]

I recall when Halloween was strictly a kids’ holiday. When we were pre-teens, we went out trick-or-treating. As teenagers, we rigged up flying ghosts and other devices to spook the trick-or-treaters, and by our late teens, we had outgrown Halloween.

I celebrate Halloween as the anniversary of Ivy-Mike, the first hydrogen bomb test, which occurred on the island of Eniwetok on November 1, 1952—October 31 on this side of the International Date Line.

[bramps]

The decadence of society has directly increased along with the popularity of Halloween. Just spend a minute in one of the pop up Halloween stores and ask yourself if God would have no problem with it.

[Alex Murphy]

Asking for treats door-to-door is probably derived from the English practice of celebrating Guy Fawkes Day on November 5. Between the 16th and 18th centuries in England, Catholics had no legal rights. Sometimes Catholics resisted the oppression. One extreme example of resistance was the failed "Gunpowder Plot" that backfired, so to speak, on November 5, 1605. As a commemoration of this event, which became a national holiday, English Protestant revelers would wear masks and go from one Catholic home to the next in the middle of the night, demanding beer and cakes for celebration. The revelers frequently carried lanterns made of turnips, carved to mimic the heads of the beheaded conspirators. Over time more customs were added, including pranks by children the night before. To this day, children wearing masks beg for pennies and treats door-to-door on Guy Fawkes Day and people celebrate the king’s preservation with fireworks, bonfires, and burning effigies of the treasonous conspirators.

English Protestants carried the celebration of Guy Fawkes Day to the American colonies. These settlers included Anglicans, who also kept the feast of All Saints, and Puritans. Anglicans commonly called the celebration "Powder Plot Day," while Puritans with more anti-Catholic tendencies preferred "Pope Day."

So many details, so little exposition when a Catholic tells it:

In 1605, 13 young men planned to blow up the Houses of Parliament in what is now called "the Gunpowder Plot". The Gunpowder Plot came about after Queen Elizabeth I died in 1603. English Catholics, who had been persecuted under her rule, were bitterly disappointed when her successor, James I, who had a Catholic mother, failed to be more tolerant of their religion. Their leader Robert Catesby decided to blow up the Houses of Parliament, hoping to kill the King, the Prince of Wales, and the MPs who were making life difficult for Catholics.

Among 13 young men was Guy Fawkes, Britain's most notorious traitor and Roman Catholic convert. He was arrested in Parliament's cellar with 36 barrels of gunpowder. Fawkes was tried, convicted, and executed for treason.

Even now, four hundred years later, the reigning monarch only enters the Parliament once a year for the State Opening of Parliament. And before the opening, according to custom, the Yeomen of the Guard searches the cellars of the Palace of Westminster.

Related threads:
Guy Fawkes in the U.S.
Book bound in skin of executed Jesuit to be auctioned in England
Jumping off the scaffold [Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot]
‘Master Illusionist’ (Tower of London Is Hallowed for the Blood St. Nicholas Owen Spilled There)
Guy Fawkes’ Day: The significance of November 5th
Royal succession law change bid fails
The Act of Settlement is just fine [as a Catholic, this writer is happy with it]
Happy Guy Fawkes Day
How Brits Fail To Remember, Remember The 5th of November [Guy Fawkes Day]
We Will Remember - an ad by the republican governor's association that is driving liberals crazy.
John Knox to be included in pageant during Pope's visit to Scotland

[Biggirl]

Off topic, just got my electric power back.

[Tax-chick]

It’s Tom’s 16th birthday! But don’t be scared ... he won’t get a driver’s license until he has an approved Eagle Scout project underway. I don’t know when that will be, but Bill was 17-1/2 ...

I dressed up as Tom for the Cub Scouts’ party on Monday ... baggy pants, science-club t-shirt, iPod, scowl, “They made me come here. I’m not having fun.” The adults all thought it was funny.

Tonight we’ll all go to Mass, then have supper. I got some candy to hand out, so we don’t have to shut off all the lights pretend we’re not home.

[Bigg Red]

Excellent explanation.

I think it is really stupid the way so many adults now participate in Halloween dressing up and parties. When I was a child and when my children were young, only kids dressed up and went trick-or-treating.

[Zionist Conspirator]

Just as the Church baptizes pagans and makes them into Christians by God’s grace, Christians can give old customs good, new, and richer meaning, e.g., Christmas and Easter replaced pagan feasts associated with winter and spring, respectively.

But the Church doesn't baptize Biblical holidays (Pesach, Ro'sh HaShanah, Sukkot, Purim, etc.) . . . it forbids them.