Is celebrating a holiday that honors ghouls, demons, ghosts, and everything that goes bump in the night dangerous or even evil?
Somewhere, in the halls of history, Halloween or All Hallows Eve, got hijacked. What started as a day to prepare for All Saints’ Day
(November 1st), Halloween became a spooky, evil, and candy filled
observance. The term “Halloween” from its beginnings, had nothing to
do with any pagan or evil beliefs. The Christian festival All Hallows
Eve morphed into our current term Hallowe’en.
The key in understanding of the origins
of the term Halloween comes from the sense of what is “hallowed” or
“holy”. In the Lord’s Prayer, Christians pray, “Our Father, in heaven,
hallowed be your name…” In the fourth century, John Chrysostom tells
us that the Eastern church celebrated a festival in honor of all saints
who died. In the seventh and eighth centuries, Christians celebrated
“All Saints’ Day” formally.
