Don’t let the Devil Take What’s Ours
It's that time of year again-Halloween, a festival many Christians recoil from the way a vampire shrinks from garlic. Many have a hatred, animosity, and downright repulsion for the strange holiday, and I don’t’ blame them. After all, they think it belongs to the devil, when the reality couldn’t be further from the truth.
The holiday didn’t originate from the Celtic festival of Samhain as some think, but from the Roman festival of Luminaire in which the Romans would put out sweet cakes to appease restless souls. It was believed by Roman pagans that the border between this world and the next thinned on that day, and the spirits of the dead walked across it.
When Christianity became the preferred religion in Rome, the festival's meaning was changed to honor the saints, people who were martyred in horrific ways to bring us the faith. Remembrance of the saints’ sacrifices gives Halloween its creepy and macabre nature because by sacrifice, I’m not just talking about the cross. I’m talking about the rack, the axe, the sword, boiling oil, the iron maiden, the rope, the firing squad, and a litany of other deaths so horrific that, if I made a haunted house detailing all these sufferings, I would need liability waivers at the front and ambulances waiting at the back for the heart and anxiety attacks this blatant reality would induce.
We have a tendency to focus only on the good that the faith has to offer, but Christianity cannot exist without the cross. It also would not exist without the other “crosses” endured over the years by saints who gave up everything to bring us the faith.
Halloween is a reminder of this. The fact that some pervert it with devil worship and inappropriate decorations does not change what it is. It is all Hallows Eve, the day before the Catholic Holy Day of All Saints Day. It is remembrance. It is a celebration and a reminder that we cannot have eternal life without the grave.
In short Halloween is ours. It has always been and will always be ours. The devil is trying to take it away.
Don’t let him.
The holiday didn’t originate from the Celtic festival of Samhain as some think, but from the Roman festival of Luminaire in which the Romans would put out sweet cakes to appease restless souls. It was believed by Roman pagans that the border between this world and the next thinned on that day, and the spirits of the dead walked across it.
When Christianity became the preferred religion in Rome, the festival's meaning was changed to honor the saints, people who were martyred in horrific ways to bring us the faith. Remembrance of the saints’ sacrifices gives Halloween its creepy and macabre nature because by sacrifice, I’m not just talking about the cross. I’m talking about the rack, the axe, the sword, boiling oil, the iron maiden, the rope, the firing squad, and a litany of other deaths so horrific that, if I made a haunted house detailing all these sufferings, I would need liability waivers at the front and ambulances waiting at the back for the heart and anxiety attacks this blatant reality would induce.
We have a tendency to focus only on the good that the faith has to offer, but Christianity cannot exist without the cross. It also would not exist without the other “crosses” endured over the years by saints who gave up everything to bring us the faith.
Halloween is a reminder of this. The fact that some pervert it with devil worship and inappropriate decorations does not change what it is. It is all Hallows Eve, the day before the Catholic Holy Day of All Saints Day. It is remembrance. It is a celebration and a reminder that we cannot have eternal life without the grave.
In short Halloween is ours. It has always been and will always be ours. The devil is trying to take it away.
Don’t let him.
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