Luky
WHEN MY MOTHER WAS FIRST MARRIED SHE USED TO BE TERRIBLY HOMESICK FOR HER OWN PARENTS AND THEIR LARGE FAMILY, EVEN THOUGH THEY WERE LIVING QUITE NEARBY.
So whenever she had the opportunity she put her baby in the pram and went to visit her mother in the daytime.
On one occasion she found the latter feeling very despondent.
On being asked why, she gave a time-honoured reason for her grief:
"Your father", she said, "says I'm spending all his money. He reckons I haven't got a clue about finance, and try as I may, I don't see where I can cut down on my budget."
My mom rooted her pen from her bag, found a sheet of paper and sat down beside her mother to help her work out a new budget.
"And will you believe", my mother always asked with the same degree of astonishment when telling the story, "that she was subscribing to thirty-four different religious periodicals?"
Like my grandmother I'm devoted to religious periodicals, and I sigh for the days when the back of every church held a stand containing publications from the Catholic Truth Society. That's why I was so grateful when an anonymous benefactor sent me a year's free subscription to Soul magazine from the USA.
I simply love Soul, being the kind of "prop" Catholic so many clearthinking people disapprove of so heartily.
And here I'm thinking about people like the correspondent who deplored the fact that some people are convinced they're going to heaven because they made the nine First Fridays, since I'm a most enthusiastic private in their ranks - a rather Sad Sack-like character, it is true, since it took me six years to accomplish one consecutive run of Fridays. Does that make me some kind of a record holder?
Jokes aside, one Soul I read which reached me in 1975 contained a paragraph headed Triple Jubilee.
I hope you'll be as excited as I was to learn that 1975 was more than just the Holy Year, but also the 300th anniversary of the apparition of our Lord to Margaret Mary Alacoque, when He promised salvation to all those who make the nine First Firdays.
And if he really did say that, who can doubt His word?
With St Thomas Aquinas I say: "What God's Son has told me, take for truth I do, Truth itself speaks truly, or there's nothing true!"
Finally, said Soul, 1975 was the 50th anniversary of the apparition of our Lady to Sister Lucia, the Fatima visionary, who said she showed her heart pierced by thorns and spoke those pathetic words: "You at least try to console me."
According to Lucia, our Lady asked her to make known to the world that she would assist at death with all the graces necessary for salvation those who on five consecutive first Saturdays would confess, go to Holy Communion, recite part of the Rosary and spend fifteen minutes in an effort to make reparation for sin.
If you can't go to Rome on pilgrimage in a Holy Year, try to make a spiritual pilgrimage instead by starting the nine First Fridays and including the five first Saturdays at the same time.
If our Lord and our Lady have offered us these aids to salvation, it would be churlish to deny them, and if you can do the first Fridays you might as well do the first Saturdays at the same time.
A woman I know had given birth to twins and was telling us about her sense of surprise at the confinement.
"I was so relieved to find it was all over," she said, "when the doctor called out: 'Hold it! There's another one!"
"How did you feel then?" I asked. We were speaking Afrikaans at the time, so she said: "Ag man, ek het maar net gedink:* 'In for a penny, in for a pound!' "
* "Oh well, I just thought"
Adore te Devote
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xs67InkZ3A
Adore te Devote, English translation 'Godhead here in hiding'
http://www.chantcd.com/lyrics/godhead_here_hiding.htm
Soul Magazine
https://wafusa.org/category/soul-magazine/page/2/
The great promise of the Sacred Heart of Jesus
http://churchinterfaith.blogspot.ie/2015/10/the-great-promise-of-sacred-heart-of.html
Devotion of the Five First Saturdays
http://lumierecharitymarian.blogspot.ie/2016/09/devotion-of-five-first-saturdays.html
With thanks to Youtube, Chanted.com and Wafusa.org
I HAD NEVER HEARD OF HALLOWEEN UNTIL I MOVED TO THE NORTHERN CLIMES. It was only after I disgraced myself by shrieking hysterically in a supermarket after a larger than life size ghoul enwrapped me in ghostly grey wind-blown trailers festooned with plastic spiders that Halloween burst in on my unsuspecting world.
It took some years before I could move with equanimity through stores with fake gravestones complete with flashing red eyes and booming voice, skeletons, witch hats and devil forks.
Pumpkins - beautifully round and glowing orange - are sold by the bucketful at this time: destined for use with candlelight spilling from within.
The first year I spent in cold October fifty five degrees above the equator and fifteen degrees south of the Arctic circle, I was still acclimatising to the then startling crisp coldness of the night air.
Bonfires startled me, glossy conkers enthralled me and the general bonhomie made me smile.
First Halloween
My first Halloween saw me walking home in the night darkness.
At the end of the street I saw a little golden globe bobbing up and down, faerylike in the evening gloom.
Every now and then a pink haze glowed beside the golden globe: then the globe would cease movement.
As I neared the mysterious light, all became clear. A little girl dressed as a faery stood 'trick or treating' in a doorway.
In her hand she tightly clutched a lighted globe atop a faery's wand.
Her mom stood next to her as her little brothers pranced around dressed as furry bears.
"If you go down in the woods today . . ."
It was an evening tableau of innocence and yes, may I say it, sweetness.
As the little girl turned around she met my eyes, and bobbed a confident curtsey.
The pink petals of her faery costume belled out and caught the light of her faery globe, thus giving the reflected haze illusion I had wondered at.
One little bear pranced around making pawing movements and growling in contentment at the treat bucket.
The family party then moved on around the corner, laughter and happiness moving steadily with them as they brought joy to the quiet street.
Stark contrast
Contrasted with the joy and fun of that fall evening was the scene where parents brought their children to a local center.
Stories for children about ghosts, haunted cemeteries and witches were offered by entertainers at the center's entrance.
One mother had brought her young infant to the entertainment.
The little one sustained such a shock when he saw a howling ghoul dripping with fake blood that he became hysterical with fear.
The poor mite sobbed seemingly endlessly.
Having shortly before entered the center, I wondered why a tiny infant should be exposed to such a sight at a tender age.
His poor mother was distracted trying to comfort her child who was inconsolable.
Holy evening
Which brings me to my point.
Halloween is an old English word which means "hallowed evening" or "holy evening".
The word can be traced back to hālig, Old English for "holy".
During the Middle Ages, All Hallows' Day was the name for what Christians now call All Saints Day, and the evening that preceded All Hallows Day was All Hallow Eve - or, as we now know it, Halloween.
Remembrance with dignity
Surely this celebration is one of prayer and dignified remembrance of our beloved ones who have gone before us into the eternal mystery of the afterlife with Christ.
Yet it would seem that much revelry contains emphasis on ghouls, devils, witches and horror.
Costumes of 'walking dead', ghostly painted faces, devil costume and horns, witch apparel and symbols including the satanic pentagram can be seen at times adorning revellers.
Undue use of liquor and other stimulants with unfortunate effects often mar the peace of the holy night.
Bonfires hark back to the ancient practice of 'bone fires', literally bone fires.
In antiquity these were reportedly used in animal and human sacrifice.
In the satanic bible, Anton LaVey wrote that after one's own birthday, the two major satanic holidays are Walpurgisnacht and Halloween [or All Hallows Eve].
Reclaim the holiday
Why don't we all reclaim this holiday for Christ who gave His Life for our redemption, and forebear to bring our children to ghostly events. We could even dress ourselves and our children in costumes of innocence and good taste: one must have celebration in life after all.
There is nothing stopping us from dressing as angels or one of the saints. . .
It would be great to see a troop of little Saint Patricks and Angel Gabriels trick or treating at hospitable doors.
They would be a wonderful tradition following the faery and little bear footsteps . . .
Is Halloween a holy time for Christians? Alleged News
http://www.cogwriter.com/hallo.htm
Halloween, Alleged News
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween
Satanic holidays, Alleged News
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satanic_holidays
Teddy Bear Picnic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6uh8NH6KC8
With thanks to cogwriter.com and wikipedia
