With Halloween over for another year, we hope that by next year this word will be deleted from the dictionary of our thoughts! For those of you who think it is just a time for dressing up – BE WARNED!
Halloween originated from the ancient Celts who were conscious of the spiritual world. The end of summer feast was Samhain, when hostile supernatural forces were active, and ghosts and spirits were free to wander. The Celtic Priests carried out sacrificial rituals of animals and humans, in the open air by Druids.
Trick-or-treat – to Samhain which was the supreme night of demonic jubilation. Spirits of the dead would rise out of their graves and wander trying to return to their homes where they formally lived. Frightened villagers tried to appease them by offering them gifts of fruit and nuts. If this wasn’t done, villagers feared that the spirits would kill their flocks or destroy their property. The only thing the superstitious people knew to do to protect themselves from these evil spirits was to masquerade as one of the demonic hoard – hoping to blend in and go unnoticed. So this is the origin of halloween, masquerading as devils, imps, witches, ogres and other demonic creatures.

Do we really want, or even worse want our children to be involved in such a satanic tradition.? Of course we don’t!

But the great news is that there is a Christian Alternative called “LITE-NITE” – a children’s party in a church that offers live music, games and quizzes, rather than trick-or-treat or vampire masks. We as Christians are children of the light – let us not return to the darkness of the pre-Christian days.

But the Christian Feast of All Saints Day is universal and honours and remembers all Christian saints, thanking God for all believers both dead and living. It is a day to glorify Jesus Christ, who by His holy life and death has made the saints holy through Baptism and faith. St. Chrystom of Constantinople (d. 407) was the first Christian we know of to assign the Feast to a particular day, the first Sunday after Pentecost which is observed by The Orthodox Church, but the Western Church (esp. Roman Catholics, Lutherans and Anglicans) celebrate it on November 1st, being the day that the Bishop of Rome, Gregory III (d.741) had it observed, since this was the day that he dedicated a chapel in the Basilica of St. Peters to “All the Saints”. Then Gregory IV (d. 844) in 835 ordered the Feast of All Saints to be universally observed on November 1st.

Avril