October 31 is marked on the calendar as Halloween.
It was originally referred to as ‘All Hallows’ Evening, All Hallows’ Eve, or All Saints’ Eve. The word “Hallowe’en” means “hallowed evening” or “holy evening”.
Yet, if you were to ask the common person what is Halloween, they would associate it with some type of evil. It’s unfortunate. Halloween has been ‘jacked’!
Halloween is the evening before the Christian holy days of All Hallows’ Day (also known as All Saints’ or Hallowmas) on 1 November and All Souls’ Day on 2 November, thus giving the holiday on 31 October the full name of All Hallows’ Eve (meaning the evening before All Hallows’ Day). Since the time of the early Church,[70] major feasts in Christianity (such as Christmas, Easter and Pentecost) had vigils that began the night before, as did the feast of All Hallows’.
These three days are collectively called Allhallowtideand are a time for honoring the saints and praying for the recently departed souls who have yet to reach Heaven. Commemorations of all saints and martyrs were held by several churches on various dates.
Today, the day has been hijacked from it’s real meaning.
Halloween costumes celebrate supernatural figures such as vampires, monsters, ghosts, skeletons, witches, and devils. Even more, superstitious false facts such as ‘The Devil’s Birthday’ , ‘The Evil Portal Day’ and ‘Black Day’ have snuck into the vernacular. All of this is spread by word of mouth and is not based in any fact traditional or otherwise.
On All Hallows’ Eve, many Western Christian denominations encourage abstinence from meat, giving rise to a variety of vegetarian foods associated with this day.Because in the Northern Hemisphere Halloween comes in the wake of the yearly apple harvest, candy apples (known as toffee apples outside North America), caramel or taffy apples are common Halloween treats made by rolling whole apples in a sticky sugar syrup, sometimes followed by rolling them in nuts.
The truth of the matter is that Halloween has become big business, with horror movies, haunted houses and amusement parks making money from ‘Halloween Haunted Extravaganzas’. It is big money.
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