The Coolness of a Common Holiday

I keep hearing about the Catholic Church and how it likes to kill pagans at every turn. If that's the case, then could someone please explain Halloween to me?

Halloween began as a decidedly pagan celebration. The timing made some pretty good sense; the fields had just been harvested and animals were culled for winter meats. Even among the human population a lot of deaths were going to happen in the next few months from cold and disease. As even the sun seemed to be getting sicker it was really hard to not think about death. The shamans of the tribe, who were supposed to make sure that the tribe's morale was kept up. Somehow the idea of celebrating the dead seemed a natural, if somber, way to deal with the tribe's issues. Eventually children acting as the proxy for monsters somehow got into it, and Halloween started its path down to our celebration of it today.

Along came the Catholic Church. The Church has always been looking for ways to increase its numbers. Admittedly there can get rather obnoxious about it, but some of their best campaigns are the peaceful ones, such as Ireland and snakes, or when they can get others to make the threats, such as a certain Viking king. Halloween is probably one of their greatest PR campaigns ever; you can see the missionaries saying, "Sure, we celebrate our dead as well around there; we have all these saints, see, and so we can get behind the idea of celebrating their deaths." Odds are there was some celebration, even if it was a quick toast, the clergy being human and the season being rather fit for thinking about death.

Although it's a given that the celebration was kept when the pagans became Christians, I'm not sure if it can be truly said that The Church kept the holiday but were able to find a sacred purpose for it so much as they liked the idea, Catholics having a morbid fascination with death, but the holiday and its traditions stood. At least, until recently.

As a number of Christian groups have decided to get away from all things satanic, Halloween has come under fire. This makes a certain degree of sense given its pagan origins. I personally like the idea of Halloween as compared to a generic harvest festival. Harvest festivals are just reasons to celebrate the fading sunlight; Halloween is a reason to celebrate the dead and their departure from our lives; there is just something fitting about it being when everything else is being harvested. I also like the idea of embracing our own demons, and allowing them to be seen on the outside; people being flawed, it is sort of nice to have one night a year when we allow masks to show our true selves.

Ultimately, all I am saying is that one needs to remember where Halloween comes from, but embrace it rather than run from it. Happy Halloween!