Halloween, All Hallow's Day, All Soul's Day

 I recently posted the following on a discussion board online, but am posting it here as well for future reference: 



In a few days Halloween will be here, the national holiday where folks in my part of the country love to decorate their houses in ways equaled only by Christmas, and have virtually caused a condition of 'orange fatigue.'  I can thank my Celtic forebears for making an otherwise religious occasion into one that obscures anything of the hope of heaven. 

I was surprised, however, that the triduum of this festival (All Hallow's Eve, All Hallow's Day, All Soul's Day) is not cut all of one cloth, and not all of the triduum of this festival is necessarily one of joy.  All Hallow's Eve, at least going back to medieval times, treated this part of the triduum as a more somber time.  In a missal from 1927 I noticed that the Catholic church designated purple for the altar and priestly vestments.  In James Monti's book A Sense of the Sacred - Roman Catholic Worship in the Middle Ages (Ignatius Press, 2012), we read that "the eve of All Saints is a 'day of affliction', that is, a day of fasting recalling the 'misery of the present life'...." (529).  There was also a tradition on this day to have a "Black Vespers," so named for the color of the vestments.  While not found in any of the church's official liturgical books, there was a Breton custom to hold such a service on All Hallow's Eve.  One article notes that the service "begins with the antiphon 'I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living'—and perhaps here we can see the origin of the idea that on Halloween the departed souls returned to earth."  (https://www.liturgicalartsjournal.com/2019/09/all-hallows-eve-halloween-in.html?fbclid=IwAR16hTC5VDN9r0FiZpFBrDUCCSRBPiSPOZEqhxQLrafsyv4qJpqTPfc06YQ&m=1)

The third day of the triuum, historically known as "All Soul's Day," is problematic for protestants.  Although also known for some time as "The Commemoration of the Faithful Departed," as it is called in the Lutheran tradition, it is connected with the teaching of purgatory.  Again, from a 1927 missal: "The feast of All Saints is intimately connected with the remembrance of the holy souls who, detained in purgatory to expiate their venial sins or to pay the temporal pains due to sin, are none the less confirmed in grace and shall one day enter heaven."  I suspect that masses are still said for those in purgatory, however, those more closely connected with the Roman church would know more of this.  The current RC catechism continues to teach the doctrine of purgatory, so I can't imagine that this custom would not persist. 

In my church, the entire triuum is compressed into one Sunday where we remember the 'great cloud of witnesses' who have preceded us into the presence of Christ, as well as remember the local saints who passed away during the previous twelve months.  The entire celebration is vested in white and retains none of its medieval heaviness. 

American traditions have in some ways kept a bit of the medieval tradition alive, albeit in a commercialized way devoid of any spirituality.  The idea of souls suddenly freed from purgatorial detention to wander the earth for a night, along with the Celtic addition of free floating evil spirits to terrorize all, continues in some way in the incessant stream of horror movies slotted on cable TV for October. 

Nonetheless, it is a wonderful festival with a much needed glimpse of the glory to come and a time to give thanks for the preservation of the faithful even in times of great duress. 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Historical Roots of the Warham Guild Hood

The Firefighter's Cross

KFUO-FM Sale: Editorial from Board of Directors