HALLOWEEN CELEBRATION

HALLOWEEN CELEBRATION
“Every kid (and kid at heart) looks forward to October, 31st each year. Little boys magically turn into vampires and little girls into fairies, bidding for the greatest haul of sugar laden sweets and candies. However, Halloween has a much deeper, and in some ways darker history, that has given birth to one of the most beloved holidays in the world.
Halloween’s origins go all the way back to Ancient times with the Celtic festival of Samhain. This was the Celt’s version of a New Years Eve celebration honoring the end of summer and harvest time, and marking a period of cold, darkness, and death of winter. Celts believed that this end of the year time marked the time in which the barrier between the living and the dead became thin. On October 31st the spirits would come back from the dead and create havoc by damaging the crops with frost and causing a multitude of other troubles.
The Roman church soon enacted a holiday to detour the worship of spirits, and so proclaimed November 1st as All Saint’s Day to honor the saints and martyrs of the church. This day was also known as All Hallows Eve. As the two religions began to mix much of the traditions of Samhain, such as dressing up in costumes and dancing around the fire, became one with All Hallows Eve to create Halloween”.
At present the celebration of Halloween has given so much emphasis on the negative spirits so that now even policemen and security guards are wearing masks of ghosts and other fearful elements. The result of this practice is turning the celebration to the darker side of life.
Since this is already accepted as All Saint’s Day I wonder why the Roman Catholic Church allow such kind of celebration. A better way of doing it probably is to encourage all Catholics to bring out in front of their houses their revered images of Saints on this day. That way the celebration shall me more positive, more festive and more relevant. Our Saints and Martyrs of the Church shall be properly honored.