Halloween: The Real Meaning

To understand Halloween, first you need to know about a Catholic holiday –or holy day – that is still celebrated today by Catholics around the world. It is called All Saints Day. At one time we were all a part of the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church was simply the Christian church as it developed from the very first Christians in the city of Rome during the days of the Roman Empire. The church grew and spread and finally the Roman Empire itself became a Christian government. It went from persecuting Christians to persecuting those who were not Christians. All of Europe was Catholic for over a thousand years – from around 400 AD until 1500 AD.

The special day called All Saints Day began as a commemoration of all those believers or “saints” who had been martyred for Christ under the Roman Empire. The Catholic Church continued to add special people to the list of “saints” – those who had served the Lord all their life, and who had miracles connected to their ministry. In the New Testament the word “saints” just means believers so we are all “saints” in that sense. But the Church meant (and Catholic Church still today holds) that certain people stand apart as having lived especially holy lives. These people are proclaimed to be “saints” in that special sense.

Back in the Middle Ages, All Saints Day was known then as All Holies Day, actually, “All Hallows Day” – “hallow” just being the old English for “holy.”

The Catholic Church placed the celebration of this holy day right on top of a pagan Celtic festival – hoping that this would help people give up the pagan holiday and make it a Christian one. But the people never really let go of the pagan shenanagens, they just kept both. It was believed by many that on the night of this particular pagan festival, all sorts of devils and demons came out to possess the souls of innocent people. To ward off these demons, people thought they should dress up like demons themselves in order to scare them away. This tradition fell on the evening before All Holies Day – therefore it was known as All Hallow's Evening (just the way Christmas “Eve” is the night before Christmas).

 The word evening was often spoken and written as a contraction -- e’en. Thus, you now had people dressing up like goblins and demons on the night called Hallow E’en… get it?

The interesting thing about Halloween is that one of the most important events in Christian history happened on that night.

It was an event which helped put the stake in a real Dracula’s heart, you might say, because the Catholic Church had become incredibly corrupt. That’s a story in itself, and the Catholic Church of our day has reformed itself and no such abuses exist within it now. Protestants still don’t agree with many Catholic doctrines, but Catholics believe the Apostle’s Creed just as we do, and their church is in no way corrupt as it was back then.

But it was very corrupt in the years leading up to 1516. In the fall of that year a German monk named Martin Luther just couldn’t take it anymore (the abuses and corruption). He’d been able to get hold of a Bible (the printing press had just been invented shortly before and Bibles were rare even among the clergy), and he came to see that the Church was telling some lies in order to get money from the poor people. He made a list of 95 points, or "theses," which he wanted to make protesting these abuses, then he nailed them up on the big wooden doors of the town church because the doors served as a kind of town bulletin board in those days. And just to make double sure everyone would see his 95 Theses, Luther posted them on the day right before All Saints Day – All Hallows Day-- when the whole town  would be gathering there to worship. Thus, Martin Luther posted his 95 Theses on the door of the church in Wittenberg, Germany on Halloween.

Satan, the only true Dracula, got staked that night for real because Martin Luther’s action was the match that lit the bonfire of the Protestant Reformation. This was followed soon after by the Catholic’s own reformation. Demons of false clergymen with nothing but political power and self interest were eventually brought down as the goblins of doctrinal lies got eaten up by the Truth. Satan must have gnashed his teeth over that spunky monk who took his stand for Christ that Halloween.

So, if you do celebrate Halloween, just know you’re mocking the devil. He lost a great battle on this night five centuries ago,

and, as Martin Luther said, “The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn.”

 

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© Laurie J. White