From the Pastor’s Desk:

The last eight months have been terrifying in their own real-life ways and now Halloween is this coming weekend. It is a fun night for young people as well as for many adults. Parents want to let their kids celebrate, yet many are rightfully concerned, many cities are hoping to continue with holiday traditions to boost residents' spirits while many have cancelled events. At the same time medical experts caution that the threat of coronavirus still looms. I am disappointed, as many of you are, to know that many of our favorite events both secular and church have not and cannot take place this year. Each of us need to do our part to help protect one another and prevent the spread of COVID-19 in our parishes and in Springfield. With that said, do we hang our costumes back in the closet for another year or do we work to find a safe way to have Halloween fun? That is the question many are asking. In all the guidelines I have read wear masks, small groups under 6, outside, stay apart, hand sanitize over and over, possibly let your candy set or wipe it down. Many of these things we should be doing in our normal life. Perhaps this would be a good year to celebrate and understand the meaning behind the Halloween mania that has swept the country in the past years. Remembering saints and martyrs and dedicating a specific day to them each year has been a Christian tradition since the 4th century. In 609, Pope Boniface IV decided to remember all martyrs and originally May 13th was designated as the Feast of All Holy Martyrs. We know that Pope Gregory IV in 835 moved the commemoration of martyrs from May 13th to November 1st and extended the celebration to include all the saints, changing the name to the Feast of All Saints. The night before became known as All Hallows Eve, or “holy evening,” and eventually it became Halloween. Whether Pope Gregory was trying to simulate festivals of the pagan peoples of Ireland and England in order to attract them into the church will always be up for debate. There are no medieval writings which tell that the pagan peoples of these lands gathered and celebrated a major Celtic festival on the eve of winter. In contrast New Year was a huge pagan celebration. However, it was the Irish farmers living in Ireland hundreds of years ago which prepared for the All Saints Day and the following All Souls Day the night before, by going door-to-door collecting food and goods for a village feast and bonfire. Those who contributed were promised prosperity; those who didn’t received threats of bad luck. And yes you are right, the Irish Catholics who immigrated in the 1800’s brought this practice of “trick-or-treating” with them. The rest is the great United States use of advertising and commercialism. Next to Christmas, Halloween is the largest “money maker holiday” for businesses. Unfortunately our society has turned a night of prayer and celebration into one of haunted houses, witches and ghosts.