Meaningful celebration

On this day every year, we have already been accustomed to celebrate the festival which we copied from western countries known as Halloween. It is a celebration meant primarily for children who play the game of “tricks or treats.” This is a game also copied from western countries where kids in costumes and masks go from house to house to get some sweet treats like candies and other giveaways. The celebration is thus meant to be cheerful, joyful and fun-filled, especially in some Villages where even teens and adults have also joined. In fact in our Village, the houses are now more elaborately decorated with spooky ornaments like ghosts, skeletons, witches, black cats, spider webs, pumpkins reflecting the face of a dead man, and other eerie creatures.

The current celebration is obviously one of the modern practices that somehow tend to decimate and pervert the real meaning of the occasion. During our childhood years, I remember that we use to celebrate the event in the evening going around the houses in our town, singing ghoulish songs and being treated to some merienda of puto at suman. We call this practice as “nangangaluluwa” (ghost-playing).   

And it seems that as years pass, the celebration becomes merrier and more joyful. In the City especially in some plush villages and subdivisions, the event has become an opportunity for the Village residents to spread cheers among the less fortunate in the surrounding areas by sharing their blessings in the form of “giveaways” that are slightly better than candies and other sweet treats.

Obviously this kind of celebration is not a Filipino tradition. Indeed, it even runs counter to the accepted Filipino concept of this occasion as “undas” or “araw ng mga patay” that usually calls for a somber and serious mood rather than merriment and fun. Really, when we remember or think about our dearly departed ones, it seems more common and natural for us humans to feel sad and melancholic.

Apparently also, this modern Halloween celebration is more of a secular than a religious festival. Tracing its origin I found out that “the popular customs of Halloween celebration comes from the Roman harvest festival of Pomona and of Druidism.” The occasion however shows clearer connection with the religion of the Druids in pre-Christian Ireland and Scotland where the year ended on Oct. 31, the eve of “Samhain” which was “both the end of summer and festival of the dead.”

It was a period when “the spirits of the departed were believed to visit their kinsmen in search of warmth and good cheer as winter approached … for threshing and food preparation for the winter season. It was also an occasion when fairies, witches and goblins terrified the populace by allegedly stealing infants, destroying crops and killing farm animals. On the eve of “Samhain” bonfires were lighted on hilltops “to guide the spirit of the dead to the homes of their kinsmen or to kill or ward off witches.” This ceremony persisted as late as the 19th century particularly in Scotland.

Immigrants from Great Britain and Ireland took the secular Halloween customs to the US which became popular in the latter part of the 18^th century when a large number of people from Ireland   immigrated there and introduced the traditional Halloween folk practices like the figures of the witch, the black cat, the pumpkin, candles, bobbing from apples, “trick or treat” custom, mask, parties and pranks. Apparently these are the customs evolving into the present Halloween celebration we observe here in our country.

Actually however, Halloween is also celebrated as a religious occasion for Roman Catholics. The word is derived from “hallow” meaning to make holy or to consecrate. Hence Oct. 31 is the vigil of the Hallowmas or the eve of the feast of all “holy” people or of all saints, which is Nov. 1, observed in the Roman Catholic and Anglican Churches. According to the encyclopedia, Pope Gregory III (731-741) assigned this date for celebrating the feast when he consecrated a chapel in St. Peter’s basilica to all the saints. Gregory the IV extended the feast to the entire Church in 1834. Halloween or the vigil of All Saints day in the church calendar is therefore as old as All Saints Day itself celebrated on Nov. 1.

“All Saints day” is the feast of all the people who died and who are now in heaven called the “unknown saints” because they have not been canonized by the Church. The saints who have been canonized by the Church are the “known saints,” who are venerated and emulated by all the faithful and honored during their feast days which usually coincide with their death or the beginning of their eternal life in heaven. Both these known and unknown saints are the “holy people who are already in glory contemplating in the light of God” (Catechism for Filipino Catholics, Section 1429).

But there are also “holy people” who are still being purified and awaiting the day when they will join the company of the saints in heaven. Their feast is commemorated on Nov. 2 by all of us who are still “pilgrims on earth,” through our prayers and offering of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Hence the “Church” is really a communion of three kinds of “holy people”; those who are already in the glory of God, those who are still being purified, and those of us who are still pilgrims on this earth (CFC, 1429).

So our joyous celebration today, the vigil of All Saints day, is actually a religious celebration not only because we remember and pray for the unknown saints in heaven but also because we are charitably sharing our blessings with the less fortunate pilgrims on earth like what we are doing now especially in some of the plush subdivisions.

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