http://www.9news.com/news/sidetracks/225078/337/Texas-church-invents-Jesus-Ween-instead-of-Halloween
Read into it what you want. After watching this, I did my own research on the Catholic views of Halloween festivities that are done today. After gathering information from several sites, I have a better understanding about where the trick-or-treat and costume craziness comes from.
I decided that from here till Halloween, I would do some research about how Catholics honor the parts of All Hallow's Eve, All Saint's Day, and All Soul's Day.
Today is the Jack O'Lantern. I don't remember being told this tale, but here is what I found online. http://www.americancatholic.org/Features/Halloween/jack-o-lantern.asp
Jack, the Irish say, grew up in a simple village where he earned a reputation for cleverness as well as laziness. He applied his fine intelligence to wiggling out of any work that was asked of him, preferring to lie under a solitary oak endlessly whittling. In order to earn money to spend at the local pub, he looked for an "easy shilling" from gambling, a pastime at which he excelled. In his whole life he never made a single enemy, never made a single friend and never performed a selfless act for anyone.
One Halloween, as it happened, the time came for him to die. When the devil arrived to take his soul, Jack was lazily drinking at the pub and asked permission to finish his ale. The devil agreed, and Jack thought fast. "If you really have any power," he said slyly, "you could transform yourself into a shilling."


He kept thinking he’d get around to repentance later, at the last possible minute. But the agreed-upon day arrived and death took him by surprise. The devil hadn’t showed up and Jack soon found out why not. Before he knew it Jack was in front of the pearly gates. St. Peter shook his head sadly and could not admit him, because in his whole life Jack had never performed a single selfless act. Then Jack presented himself before the gates of hell, but the devil was still seething. Satan refused to have anything to do with him.
"Where can I go?" cried Jack. "How can I see in the darkness?"
The devil tossed a burning coal into a hollow pumpkin and ordered him to wander forever with only the pumpkin to light his path. From that day to this he has been called "Jack o’ the Lantern." Sometimes he appears on Halloween!
Of course, there are different versions of his actions with the devil. But I gather the important part of this story is Jack not being let into Heaven because he had not done a single selfless act in his life.
"But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the selfish." Luke 6:36
No comments:
Post a Comment