So part of Halloween was for the Catholic Church to make money?...I mean, who do you "pay" for prayers?...the church...
That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive;
Ephesians 4:14
"It should not surprise us, because Hallowmans was the feast which the early Church took over most completely from the great pagan, Celtic feast of Samhain which celebrated the end of summer and the harvest, together with the start of winter and the New Year.
The Celts believed that, on the eve of the festival (our own Hallowe'en), the dead returned to walk the earth for a night and a day and with them came the spirits of evil, at their most potent. Fires blazed on every hilltop to purify the land, defeat the evil ones and encourage the wasting sun to revive.
The force and vigor of the ancient beliefs overrode all newer ones and these practices survived the advent of Christianity, in barely translated form at first, and only very gradually died out. The evil spirits became witches, and the bonfires burned them in effigy.
A great number of divining rituals and games, often involving apples, nuts and fire, persisted; apples and nuts were the last-harvested fruits. Even the old herbal ale: survived as mulled ale or punch with roasted apples floating in it.
The more significant pre-Christian practice of impersonating the dead and other spirits and by so doing protecting oneself and others from their spectral power also continued. Sometimes this was acted out by processions of young adults (later children) wearing or carrying grotesque masks and often headed by a youth carrying a horse's skull (as, for example, the Lair Bhan in co Cork, or the Hodening Horse in Cheshire).
They went from door to door or visited friends and neighbors, collecting money for food....Feast of All Souls immediately after All Hallows. The object of this feast, created by the early Church, was to remember the dead, and to seek alms to pay for prayers for those in Purgatory, to ease their way to Paradise – not back to earth......souls in Purgatory, so men still believed, were all allowed home for two days, although without their pagan familiars.
Candles were lit – and still are – on their graves and in the windows of houses to light them home."
HistoryToday
That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive;
Ephesians 4:14
"It should not surprise us, because Hallowmans was the feast which the early Church took over most completely from the great pagan, Celtic feast of Samhain which celebrated the end of summer and the harvest, together with the start of winter and the New Year.
The Celts believed that, on the eve of the festival (our own Hallowe'en), the dead returned to walk the earth for a night and a day and with them came the spirits of evil, at their most potent. Fires blazed on every hilltop to purify the land, defeat the evil ones and encourage the wasting sun to revive.
Ceremonial dancing,
noisy games and
harvest-end rituals
took place around these fires with drinking of the herbal ales for which the Celts were renowned.
The force and vigor of the ancient beliefs overrode all newer ones and these practices survived the advent of Christianity, in barely translated form at first, and only very gradually died out. The evil spirits became witches, and the bonfires burned them in effigy.
A great number of divining rituals and games, often involving apples, nuts and fire, persisted; apples and nuts were the last-harvested fruits. Even the old herbal ale: survived as mulled ale or punch with roasted apples floating in it.
The more significant pre-Christian practice of impersonating the dead and other spirits and by so doing protecting oneself and others from their spectral power also continued. Sometimes this was acted out by processions of young adults (later children) wearing or carrying grotesque masks and often headed by a youth carrying a horse's skull (as, for example, the Lair Bhan in co Cork, or the Hodening Horse in Cheshire).
They went from door to door or visited friends and neighbors, collecting money for food....Feast of All Souls immediately after All Hallows. The object of this feast, created by the early Church, was to remember the dead, and to seek alms to pay for prayers for those in Purgatory, to ease their way to Paradise – not back to earth......souls in Purgatory, so men still believed, were all allowed home for two days, although without their pagan familiars.
Candles were lit – and still are – on their graves and in the windows of houses to light them home."
HistoryToday