Father Glenn J. Comandini

Did you ever wonder: “Why did Jesus ask to be baptized?” After all, the Church teaches that Christ shared in our humanity in all ways but sin. So, if Jesus was without sin, why would he ask for something that he really did not need?

I recently heard a marketing expert explain how Halloween is one of the biggest consumer holidays of the calendar year. Many people love this day and decorate for it a month or more in advance of Oct. 31. In fact, it seems that, apart from Christmas, Americans spend more money on Halloween, tricks and treats, decorations and costumes, than any other holiday. Why this fascination with zombies (bodies without souls), ghosts (souls without bodies), tombstones, witches, wizards, monsters, animated pumpkins and scarecrows? Some sociologists allege that the reason for America’s growing fascination with the macabre, the occult and the dead is rooted in the erroneous notion that Halloween is a secular holiday. It is divorced from anything to do with family life, race, creed or sexual orientation. Nothing could be further from the truth, at least the part that asserts Halloween is a purely secular holiday. Perhaps in some circles, this is true but not the origins of Halloween, which takes us back more than 2,000 years ago to a tribe called the “Celts” that inhabited all of Ireland, most of the British Isles and part of France. The Celts celebrated the beginning of the new year on Nov. 1. This day symbolized the end of summer and the onset of winter. It was the time of the harvest. Celts believed that on New Year’s Eve, Oct. 31, the ghosts of the dead could roam the land from sundown on Oct. 31 until sunrise on Nov. 1. On Samhain, as this night was called, it was believed that the ghosts of the dead would rise from their graves, cause pranks and possibly ruin the harvest. To ward off these annoying spirits, the Celts wore costumes, usually made of animal heads and skins. They built a bonfire and paraded around the cemeteries of their dead until sunrise on Nov. 1.