In the past, we celebrate Halloween as a day of horror and scare. Now that there are lay initiatives to reclaim Halloween as a Catholic Feast, mentally-ill protestants have begun criticizing Halloween’s pagan roots.
My dear friends, every non-jew was never a Christian until Baptized. Can we say that we are still gentiles until today? No. We are already Christianize. Oh by the way, the Philippines is called a “Christian Country” not because of the presence of “Born Again Christians” but because of Catholicism. That’s a fact.
On the other hand, Halloween may have pagan roots but then again it has been Christianize since the time of Pope Gregory III (8th Century). That’s more or less 800 years before Protestantism. -Sem. Khing Macaranas, KSM
From CBCP NEWS:
A few days before “All Saints’ Day,” a church group in Pasig celebrated Halloween the right way—with the saints marching in, not ghouls—sending a clear message to people in the community that the occasion is primarily a religious one.
‘Not for monsters’
Led by seminarian Khing Latoja Macaranas, Pasig’s “Halloween Parade” was held Wednesday, Oct. 29, involving the“saint-ified” children of the San Nicolas Sub-Parish, and corrected the false notion that Halloween is an event meant for monsters.
Although the parade was an instant hit, the young seminarian pointed out he had to battle opposition at first, mostly from conservatives and old-timers who were shocked at the thought of a church activity named “Halloween Parade”, thinking it sounded “un-Christian,” besides the traffic jam it would cause.
“I said that’s the point. We have to show people that this feast is our feast, not the feast of ghosts and other elementals,” he stressed.
“I asked myself, if Halloween falls on November 1 which is All Saints’ Day, why all the scary costumes?… I told myself, something’s wrong,” Macaranas, who formerly served as the youth coordinator of the Immaculate Conception Cathedral Parish, Diocese of Pasig, said.
His eventual research revealed that Halloween is actually of Christian origin. Hallows refer to “holy people”, which explains why the Our Father prayer reads, “Hallowed be Thy Name…”
Macaranas added that in the 8th century, Pope Gregory III declared Nov. 1 as the “Eve of All Hallows”
Eve, the modern variant of the Middle-English word “even,” means the period (specifically, evening) immediately before an event.
Saintly costumes
According to him, as the English language developed, the Eve of All Hallows, or All Hallows’ Even, became Hallow e’en, then Halloween.
As an incentive, prizes were given to participants wearing the best saint costumes: PhP 1,000 for the first placer, PhP 600 for the second placer, and PhP 400 for the third placer.
Participants, who were between one to 15 years old, happily invested in their saintly attire.
Macaranas looks forward to the Halloween next year, hoping it to be better and bigger than the last one.
He hopes what he started in his sub-parish community will be taken up by other groups in Pasig and even elsewhere.
“I organized this parade with two objectives in mind: to eliminate the fearsome elements of the occasion by emphasizing the Hallow in Halloween, and to promote holiness as lived by our Catholic saints among people,” he said. (Raymond A. Sebastián)