My memories as a child are dressing up for Halloween, attending mass on TUTI E SANTI and remembering the dead on TUTI E MORTI. As an avowed Catholic being brought up in the old Italian ghetto in Rockford, IL, Saint Anthony of Padua Church was the hub of all things Italian. TUTI E SANTI was a holy day and the obligation to attend mass was like any other holiday.
Handing out food in the fall -- whether at Halloween or some other day, such as St. Martin's -- grew common as the custom of the lord's staging a Christmas feast declined. There's a recorded example of four women, elderly and poor, coming to a lord's house at Halloween. They wore russet capes and sang a song for the household, and received a ham in return. The expectation, of course, was that they would gather at Christmas and eat ham.
Thank you! It’s good to read the truth about Hallowtide. It’s too bad even Catholics believe the anti-Catholic lies and narrative. Satan loves ignorant and weak Catholics.
The current Western date of All Saints' was dictated by the date of the local Roman synod that anathematized Emperor Leo III's iconoclasty and his legal actions against venerating saints and relics. As part of the synod, on the day before it opened, Pope Gregory III dedicated a new oratory to the saints inside Old St. Peter's.
(He kinda had to, because a lot of older churches with relics were falling apart and losing their roofs. So he "rescued" them while the churches were being repaired, but a lot of the relics never went back except partially. They got removed when Old St. Peter's was dismantled, and are now in various places in the current St. Peter's.)
Old St. Peter's altar was in the same place as the main altar of the current St. Peter's, but separated from the nave of the church by a big door and wall as well as an iconostasis and a bunch of pillars, a la Eastern churches. The oratory was almost at the front of the nave, on the left hand side of the center aisle, and featured two altars (under which the relics were kept) and a big icon of Our Lady, as well as a wall decorated with an inscription.
Have you read Augustine Thompson's history of Halloween? It was written for a periodical, so it doesn't have the usual footnotes he would have, but he notes that various elements are French, various elements are Irish, various elements are English, and very elements are, for lack of a better term, Hallmark. It's a melting pot holiday, at least as we observe it with trick-or-treating, costumes, jack-o'-lanterns, witches and cauldrons and all the like. Each of these elements comes from a different origin!
Good to hear. This was an article for a local Catholic parents magazine back in the 90s or maybe early 2000s, and it's been republished everywhere. The following is one such repost.
My memories as a child are dressing up for Halloween, attending mass on TUTI E SANTI and remembering the dead on TUTI E MORTI. As an avowed Catholic being brought up in the old Italian ghetto in Rockford, IL, Saint Anthony of Padua Church was the hub of all things Italian. TUTI E SANTI was a holy day and the obligation to attend mass was like any other holiday.
Handing out food in the fall -- whether at Halloween or some other day, such as St. Martin's -- grew common as the custom of the lord's staging a Christmas feast declined. There's a recorded example of four women, elderly and poor, coming to a lord's house at Halloween. They wore russet capes and sang a song for the household, and received a ham in return. The expectation, of course, was that they would gather at Christmas and eat ham.
Thank you! It’s good to read the truth about Hallowtide. It’s too bad even Catholics believe the anti-Catholic lies and narrative. Satan loves ignorant and weak Catholics.
The current Western date of All Saints' was dictated by the date of the local Roman synod that anathematized Emperor Leo III's iconoclasty and his legal actions against venerating saints and relics. As part of the synod, on the day before it opened, Pope Gregory III dedicated a new oratory to the saints inside Old St. Peter's.
(He kinda had to, because a lot of older churches with relics were falling apart and losing their roofs. So he "rescued" them while the churches were being repaired, but a lot of the relics never went back except partially. They got removed when Old St. Peter's was dismantled, and are now in various places in the current St. Peter's.)
Old St. Peter's altar was in the same place as the main altar of the current St. Peter's, but separated from the nave of the church by a big door and wall as well as an iconostasis and a bunch of pillars, a la Eastern churches. The oratory was almost at the front of the nave, on the left hand side of the center aisle, and featured two altars (under which the relics were kept) and a big icon of Our Lady, as well as a wall decorated with an inscription.
Have you read Augustine Thompson's history of Halloween? It was written for a periodical, so it doesn't have the usual footnotes he would have, but he notes that various elements are French, various elements are Irish, various elements are English, and very elements are, for lack of a better term, Hallmark. It's a melting pot holiday, at least as we observe it with trick-or-treating, costumes, jack-o'-lanterns, witches and cauldrons and all the like. Each of these elements comes from a different origin!
I'm not familiar with that. Paganism scholar Ronald Hutton has done a lot of the heavy lifting of debunking things over the last few decades.
Good to hear. This was an article for a local Catholic parents magazine back in the 90s or maybe early 2000s, and it's been republished everywhere. The following is one such repost.
https://www.crossroadsinitiative.com/media/articles/truth-about-halloween/