A soul! a soul! a soul-cake!
Please good Missus, a soul-cake!
An apple, a pear, a plum or a cherry,
Any good thing to make us all merry,
One for Peter, two for Paul,
Three for the One (Him) who made us all.
—Traditional Souling Song
With the approach of Halloween, another “Holiday” battle begins. Unlike the annual fracas every December which pits believers in Christ’s birth and cultural traditionalists on the one side against those who believe that the celebration of Jesus’ birth should be submerged in a generic “Holiday Season,” this one sends Christians against Christians. On the one side are those who believe that anything to do with the dark or spooky – to include Halloween itself – must be linked directly to the Satanic. On the other are those who believe that there is nothing wrong with a bit of a fright – and more importantly the carving of pumpkins, the wearing of costumes, and the collection of candy in one of the few remaining communal observances left in modern North America. The cause of the latter is not helped by the ever-increasing appropriation of Halloween by Wiccans and outright Satanists, as well as the fact that it has outdone Easter as the number two holiday in retail terms. Against this onslaught, most Christian defenders of Halloween have only wholesome memories or parties and trick-or-treating to offer in defence of their position.
Of course, the entire societal scene has grown much darker – indeed, much more Satanic since this writer was a child in the 1960s. Infanticide is embraced by both political parties, and – if their behaviour during COVID is to be believed – most of the Catholic Church hierarchy believe their Sacramental ministrations to be optional extras, ultimately unnecessary for Salvation. Their attitudes are echoed by the laity in the universalism that Pope Benedict XVI decried in 2016. In such an atmosphere, one might be forgiven for thinking that almost anything or anyone, from presidents to prelates, may well be agents of the prince of darkness – as indeed we ourselves are so often whenever we sin.
But we do need to get a grip, and remember the reality underlying all else: the Church’s teachings are true, and her rites efficacious, regardless of follies in Church and State. We need to remember that a great deal of what we take as information regarding the preternatural comes from Protestant sources, who often regard Catholicism (and Orthodoxy) as little better than paganism. The meaning of symbols can change over time, and if we are not aware, we can make egregious mistakes. Many regard the pentagram as a symbol of witchcraft and evil. Not knowing their history, they do not realise that the Satanists invert it, as they do the Crucifix, to blaspheme it. In this they are not trying to offend the Wiccans and Neopagans, who use it in an upright manner, but its older Christian meaning. As readers of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight will remember, to our Catholic fathers it symbolised both the Five Wounds of Christ and the Five Joys of Our Lady (two more were added later to this number). Tourists visiting California’s Missions may be horrified by seeing the Eye in the Triangle on various of St. Junipero Serra’s chasubles. Lest they assume that the Golden State was a Masonic plot from the beginning, it were well for them to remember that the offending image was a perfectly decent symbol of the Trinity in Medieval times. Spain in the 18th century had not yet gotten the news that it was to be reserved to the use of an Order whose basic belief – Conduct over Creed – would one day completely obscure St. Junipero’s message of Salvation through Christ and His Church. Indeed, in this area, most of us are probably as Masonic as those who have undergone their strange rites of initiation.
This kind of straining after gnats subsequent to a full dinner of whole camel is very common to-day, and can give us quite the feeling of virtue. Into this situation falls poor hapless Halloween and its central – if latter-day – rite of Trick or Treat. So we must use our imaginations, and return to a time when Europe was Catholic and primarily agrarian. Even in the towns with their merchants and artisans, markets and fairs, and their cities (who added cathedrals to the other four items of urban life in that time), as in the countryside with its forests, fields, and manors, there was no secular popular entertainment; no movies, radio, television, nor computers. Life was very much governed by the dogmas and practises of the Church – and of the latter, not least the Liturgical Calendar.
From the rites of the Church re-emerged the theatre, in the form of miracle, morality, mystery, and mummers’ plays, which brought the teachings of the Church to life in full view of the faithful. These in turn filtered down to everyday life. Depending on specific locales, eves of major feasts – Candlemas, Ss. Philip and James, the Nativity of St. John the Baptist, St. Peter in Chains, All Saints, and the Circumcision in particular, though there were others – lent themselves to bonfires, ghost stories, and the like. Folklore spoke of various sorts of enchantment, of fairies, ghosts, and witches – of preternatural evil repelled by supernatural means – the Church’s Sacramentals in particular. There were often also performers – usually local youths or children – going from house to house, singing seasonal songs or performing simple plays that illustrated the nature of the season.
The triduum of All Hallows tide – the Eve of All Saints, the feast itself, and the following day’s observance of All Souls – lent itself to all sorts of these observances, given that all of us have many deceased loved ones – family and friends. As with other such vigils, folklore played a big role; in many places, the dead were believed to return for meals with their families – ideas that survive in Catholic places from Brittany to Mexico.
There was in a great number of places – and especially in the British Isles – “Guising” or “Souling.” Dressed in costumes, believed in some places (though far from everywhere) to hide one’s identity from any of the hostile unseen forces, people went from house to house, soliciting goodies in return for prayers for the living and dead of the house visited. In places where this was called “Souling,” “Soul Cakes” were the expected reward, along with some variety of the song quoted at the beginning of this article.
After the Protestant revolt, a lot of these customs were continued, although severed from their original intent due to the new official theology, which frowned on prayers for the dead (a liability which would be overwhelmed by the tide of aspirations after the bloodbath of World War I, but that is another story). A great many of these then crossed the Atlantic during the colonial settlement of the Atlantic States, and with subsequent immigration. Among them was Halloween.
Of course, it was somewhat different from what it had been. Although its Irish proponents still prayed for the dead, most of its Scots importers did not. Halloween parties were spooky, and often included light-hearted fortune-telling, generally aimed at figuring out one’s future spouse. The bonfires survived; and the tradition of playing pranks and tricks grew up. As the 19th century went on the tricks escalated into widespread vandalism. (This era is depicted in the Halloween scenes of the classic film, Meet Me in St. Louis.) “Trick or Treat,” developed as a kind of extortion – and it was no empty threat.
After World War I, cities across the United States made a determined effort to end the mayhem. From these efforts emerged the sanitised trick-or-treating with which we are familiar, as parents were encouraged to get younger children into the act and accompany them while doing so. Advertising swiftly arose to encourage the trend – not least by makers of both candy and holiday decorations.
