Which is that four week preparation for the most important Feast of the Liturgical Year: Halloween.
Yes, you read that correctly. Forget about Columbus Day, Forget about Thanksgiving and certainly forget about Xmas. Halloween trumps all of that in importance.
In my rectory neighborhood, I have already seen houses decorated with goblins and ghouls and orange lights. That makes me angry because we should prepare for Halloween 🎃 during this Advent Season, not celebrate it. The month of November should celebrate the Season of Halloween.
But, all kidding aside, I saw this at Liturgical Arts Journal:
A (Pre-55) All Hallows Eve Devotional Booklet from Ancilla Press
It sometimes comes as a surprise to Catholics -- especially (if not also ironically) of those who tend to be of a more traditional bent -- that what we call "Halloween" was an official liturgical vigil of the Church. As such, it has had its own proper Office and M…But I have a question, when I was a child in the late 1950’s and early 60’s in Georgia, Halloween was a one day celebration for children to get dressed up in costumes and get candy and other goodies as they went door to door saying “trick or treat.” Sometimes “hoods” in the neighborhood would pull pranks small and big but that was the extent of it. Decorations usually went up the night before or the day of. Most houses had carved pumpkins but some went all out with a horror scene in their yard quickly removed after the day of Halloween.
Today, it seems to have morphed into an adult venue, a bit darker and no hint of it being the Eve of All Hallows’.
The Alleluia Charismatic Community in Augusta will have nothing to do with ghosts and goblins, they insist their children dress up as saints and martyrs. My favorite costume is Saint Denis, with his head in hands. For them it truly is an All Hallows’ Eve.
By the way the Alleluia Community in Augusta, while ecumenical, is primarily Catholic and is exactly the same kind of community that our new Supreme Court nominee belongs to.
1 comment:
Yes, it is interesting how the God-less world derives its "feasts" and makes them sacred, that is, for business and pleasure.
Of course, last week we had a much more ancient liturgical season than Advent, the Autumn Ember days, which went unnoticed as usual. Bugnini and his gang thought they were irrelevant to Modern Man, so they are not emphasised in the Novus Ordo calendar, but are still there at least "officially." Before Vatican II these were days of strict fasting and prayer, as well as the usual abstinence from meat on Fridays.
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