When Forest Parkers think of Halloween, I suspect they think of trick-or-treating, scarecrows and the Casket Races, but Western culture has a way of reframing what were originally religious holy days into secular holidays.

All Saints Day

Originally, All Saints Day was celebrated on May 13 and was a time for Christians to remember the martyrs, i.e. Christians who had died for their faith. Pope Gregory IV moved the holy day to Nov. 1 and the focus broadened as a time to remember all Christians who had died.

The night before, i.e. Oct. 31 was known as All Hallows Eve and was shortened to Halloween.

Dia de los Muertos 

El Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) is a big deal for Mexican Catholics. Those folks have taken All Saints Day and Hallows Eve and put their own indigenous twist on the holy day.

“Once a year,” the website dayofthedead.holiday explains, “our departed come back to celebrate with us. The Day of the Dead … reunites the living and the dead.”

In a Mexican supermarket, I recently saw an altar representative of the ones set up in many homes. The altar had ofrendas to honor the departed family members, including photographs, flowers and their favorite foods. This one had two bottles of Mexican Coca-Cola which they swear tastes better because it is made with cane sugar, and a calavera, a plastic skull.

 “The offerings are believed to encourage visits from the land of the dead as the departed souls hear their prayers, smell their foods and join in the celebrations,” the website added.

“Day of the Dead is a holiday for celebrating death and life. It is a holiday where mourning is exchanged for celebration. Day of the Dead is a holiday to remember loved ones by sharing a meal with them as one would when they were alive.”

Reformation Day

Oct. 31, 1517 — 507 years ago — is the date when a monk named Martin Luther reportedly nailed what came to be known as “the 95 Theses” to a church door in Wittenberg, Germany sparking what became a religious wildfire called the Protestant Reformation.

What Luther was protesting was the selling of indulgences, a revenue stream for the Catholic Church in the 16th century. An indulgence was a document church members could buy which the Church claimed would reduce the time a loved one would have to spend in Purgatory.

What Luther intended to be a document for scholars to debate, got distributed all over Europe thanks to a new invention called the printing press, and the piece went viral, so to speak.

There was a lot of “dry tinder” of resentment against the power, wealth and authority of the pope, and the 95 Theses acted like a lightning strike that gave birth to a reform movement, on the one hand, and bloody religious wars on the other.

Luther was an interesting character. 

He was very modern, but he was also a “trouble maker.” The last thing both political and church leaders wanted was the erosion of their authority, so they summoned Luther to an assembly called a “diet” in the city of Worms, Germany. When asked, “Who do you think you are, solitary monk, to go against the authority of the pope and tradition?” Luther replied, “I cannot submit my faith either to the pope or to the council because it is clear that they have fallen into error and even into inconsistency with themselves. If then, I am not convinced by proof from Holy Scripture, or by cogent reasons … I neither can, nor will, retract anything; for it cannot be either safe or honest for a Christian to speak against his conscience.”

The audacity, claiming that an individual conscience trumps authority and tradition! 

Pretty modern, don’t you think?

Then again, Luther was quite traditional. To this day the Lutheran liturgy is very similar to the Roman Catholic Mass.

When I was a boy in the 1950s, I and some friends would go trick-or-treating and then trade the parts of our haul we didn’t want with each other. In Sunday school we would be shown a movie about Martin Luther’s heroic, individualistic stand against the Catholic Church. 

These days, older and hopefully wiser, I realize how unbridled individualism can destroy the order that secular and religious societies need to function. We have politicians who are good at tearing down but not adept at putting things back together. 

Luther didn’t want to destroy the Church; he wanted to reform it. 

There is bathwater and there are babies. Democracy means “people power.” Unfortunately, the majority can be judged by Lord Acton’s dictum — power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely — as much as demagogues can. 

Have fun trick-or-treating, but also take the opportunity to remember the “saints” who have gone before us. 

And on Nov. 5, be aware of the tricky balance between tradition and individuality when you vote.