Related, but not really related thought: Does auto-cannibalism violate the Communion fast? I mean, if you cut off your own finger and ate it?

Silly, but relevant question- what do you mean by “communion fast”? Do you mean fasting an hour before communion? Or do you mean being in sinless so that you can receive communion next time you go to mass?
I understood the gist of the article and loved it. But I don’t get the heading.

Oh, insofar as I meant anything, I meant fasting for an hour before Communion. I was just trying to come up with something that contrasted negotiable things (pretending to be a zombie) and non-negotiable (following the actual specific disciplines of the Church).

I always enjoy your posts. Frequently, I have something to say but don’t because I assume it will be lost in the usual hundred or so comments. Now, I have the opportunity to be on top and can think of nothing to say except that I always enjoy you posts and thank you for writing them.

Thanks, Dritte!  I, for one, read every single comment that comes in, so not everyone may see what you say if it’s far down the list, but I do.

Sacraments belong to the wayfaring state (i.e., being alive). Zombies, at least of the classic undead variety, are not in the wayfaring state and cannot receive sacraments. Perforce, the communion fast does not apply to them.

@LB, IIRC, yep, eating something like your finger(nails) could violate the fast, but something like biting your tongue and swallowing the blood doesn’t.  For some reason, I love that minutiae like that actually gets discussed by theologians/canon lawyers!

About innards,even tho’ you didn’t ask:
Brains actually used to be a pretty common breakfast item served with scrambled eggs.My old cookbooks have plenty of recipes:brains with browned butter, etc.
Someone told me recently that you can no longer purchase brains from the butcher because of the “Mad Cow” disease risk factor.
My grandma used to serve fried sweetbreads which I think were the thymus gland of calves.They were pretty good,like fried oysters.My mama cooked lamb kidneys(not so good.)I don’t see those for sale much anymore either.
Where we live, a local specialty is stuffed stomach-kind of like Scotch haggis,stuffed tongue,& various liver puddings stuffed into casings(intestines)for sausage.

A-haa. Which is why its important not to be a zombie (thoughtless), to the Church’s seasonal calendar, rejoice in the personal way you respond to each season that comes yadi yadi ya…Thanks, yes very clever, layered thinking. Which is why it went over my head. My pregnancy brain is very zombie-ish these days.

I can’t quite bring myself to do Halloween, because at the moment, I fall into the “It doesn’t seem quite right.” camp. We do give out candy, but we don’t go out ourselves on Halloween. However, we make a big deal of All Saints’ Day (I’m currently killing myself planning and preparing the party for our homeschool group.) so my kids don’t miss out on the candy gorge-fest. No brains, though. :)

And aren’t there a bunch of new saints to celebrate this year on All Saints’ Day?!  Surely they would appreciate a little candy with that particular celebration, no?

Then there are those of us who hate Halloween because our kids have been pestering us about costumes since JULY!!!!  I am serious considering blocking Party City from the kids’ computer.

Well, Simcha, of course you’re right that skipping Halloween or making all your kids dress up as Kateri Tekakwitha or Pier Giorgio Frassati every year is perfectly permissible, and doesn’t make anybody un-Catholic, but it might turn your kids into precious, holier-than-thou namby-pambies who think it’s a moral obligation never to fit in with other people.  (I say this as somebody who was brought up to more or less fit that description.)

ARM ,
I don’t know if your comments were meant to be serious or humorous, but in any case, I think one can be countercultural without being “holier than thou.” But perhaps that’s what you were stating.

Kathleen: Serious and humorous, maybe?  Since Simcha was so careful to be nice, somebody had to make trouble.

But seriously, I think there’s a very real danger of thinking you’re making your kids into lovely, sin-proofed angels when they’re actually just prigs.  (General you, not you-you!) And I think it’s actually a much more real danger than the danger that dressing up like a witch will make a six-year-old grow up interested in the occult.

Like I said, I was pretty much raised to think it was better not to do what other people did - even harmless things - pretty much on principle. I know there are worse problems to take away from your upbringing, but still, it is a problem to be aware of.

My family runs the gamut with Halloween.  One of my kids is creeped out, another is lukewarm and the rest, like their mother, are really into it.    Last year, my very pale, very dark haired 15 year old daughter dressed up like Snow White and did her best Disneyworld Princess imitation while distributing the candy.  As the kids were approaching our door, she’d say in her breathiest, most excited voice, something like “Oh, look, here comes Prince Grim Reaper!”  and then as the Grim Reaper would take his candy, she’d be sure to wish him a Magical Halloween.  She kept up that schtick all night long and I have to say I cannot remember another time where I laughed as hard.  And yet my 7 year old is really afraid of all the creepy costumes, doesn’t like dressing up, and isn’t crazy about begging for candy (not while he can eat the family leftovers and his brothers’ castoffs) so he just opts out of the whole night.  And that’s ok too.

@ARM - that’s the way I grew up too.  Or at least, that’s the message I took away, and so I have tried hard to let my kids define themselves instead of having their differences thrust upon them.    That way when there’s something that I really do feel is inappropriate I think it carries more weight with them.  But even better is when my kids can realize stuff on their own.  For instance, my daughter and I enjoy that reality show “Sister Wives”.  A show I never would’ve been allowed to watch and one my mother still can’t believe I allow - but hearing my daughter tell her libertarian friend that polygamy should be illegal because sometimes you need to protect people from themselves was priceless.

ARM ,
Yes,while living in the world, there’s a balance to be kept which isn’t easy.
I think it was Chuck Swindoll who said Christians are always balancing between extremes.Like walking on a tightrope.Each end has to be equally tight or the middle slacks & you fall off.
I think most parents do the best they can in a difficult time & culture.Sometimes the culture appears so toxic that we can overreact.

I see Halloween as a “parable of the talents” opportunity. God has given me one bowl of candy, and it is my responsibility to turn that into two, five, or even ten times that amount (with the help of the kids, of course!)

My mom always let us celebrate Halloween but when we were little there was a time period when she had her reservations.  I always desired a dark, scary, gothic-y costume but Mom, influenced by several of her friends who thought Halloween an unapologetic bacchanalia of Satan and all his works, was reluctant to let me choose anything scarier than a scarecrow.  One year I wanted to be a ghost, the costume of which would be a white sheet with a spooky face on it, and at the last minute Mom, worried that she was allowing me to glorify the fallen souls of the dead, lost her nerve and happyfied my costume by adding a hat, tie and smiling Sharpie face.  It was, now that I look back on it, very cute but something within me was unsatisfied that chilly October night.

My adopted little ones have never experienced Halloween, so I’m particularly looking forward to taking my little knight, princess, and pirate around the neighborhood.  Their daddy will be dressed up in full Renaissance garb as well. :)

In our old neighborhood, people went WAY OUT for Halloween.  Without exaggeration, it is the most celebrated holiday in Mill Valley(kinda sad eh?)—But a good party none-the-less.  The entire town has one big party down Sycamore Avenue which has the perfect mix of damp, fall leaves, crisp forested air and old fashioned houses decked out with graveyards and creepilicious decorations. By far the most fright inspiring pumpkins were the ones carved with Obama’s “Hope” face(serious).
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I always wore my giant black satin, ostrich-feathered and spider-crawling,veiled, witch hat.  It never ceased to amaze me how the adults could walk around with martini glasses, flasks and a bottle of Cab, and the cops would look the other way.  The adorable kids in outstanding costumes were surely taking mental notes for their own transformation to “adult Halloween” which would happen in a shockingly short amount of time.
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I have a disorder called “Halloween denial”. I always tried to make/put together a couple of them, but always ended up panicking,and sending my husband to the crazy Halloween store at the last minute, and then would complain when he spent too much.  He is the one who always pulled it off at the last minute, and could be employed by a Hollywood studio for his authentic center-of-the forehead bullet wounds or bolts exiting temples God love him.  He would wake up early so they could bike to school that way.  My son once gave a little old man a horrible fright at 8 am this way.
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@Kathleen, my MIL served TONGUE at my rehearsal dinner party, no options, main-course.  She had a smirk on her face the whole night.

About “when Daddy tosses the baby up in the air and baby laughs”: The analogy is spot-on, Simcha. However, dads, please make sure the “baby” is two or more—or that you modify that play into “flying.” Little brains are scarily prone to injury, and that’s no laughing matter.
http://www.whattoexpect.com/baby-health-and-safety/safe-baby-play.aspx
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Sorry to be a Debbie Downer. I’m an enthusiastic reader, and no That Hat Lady!

“Just keep checking in with your mother, but don’t compare yourself too much with your brother.  You’re a different person, and your mother appreciates that (even if your brother doesn’t).”  That may be one of the wisest, most practical pieces of spiritual advice I have ever read, Simcha!  Well said!

I hope you didn’t mind me going off-topic and not talking about Halloween.

@MrsSheepcat - no, that’s a good point!

@Eileen “some people need to be protected from themselves” :D And yes, the human condition can get pretty bizarre. Those sister wives people make me want to laugh, scream and ask the universe “WHY?!!” LOL. I was free wheeling a bit last night after the kids went to bed.  When my husband walked in at 10 with a little halo from an evening of recollection, I was switching back and forth from Anthony Bourdaine and the Real Housewives of NY.  I haven’t been so bad since my daughter left for college. When he said “Really?” with those judgey eyebrows, I laughed self consciously, but we both stared for five minutes in a kind of mute fascination. I can never settle in and watch a whole episode because my soul starts to feel like I’m feeding it junk food, and my sense of self esteem suffers.  Frankly the “freak effect” gets boring after about 15 minutes anyways.  I left my husband to Anthony Bourdaine the hedonist, but at least he travels to cool places and eats interesting things.

LB, when I had to consult the experts when asked by a nose-picking-and-eating child, I was told that it doesn’t count as eating if it’s something that was already part of your body.  So cuticles, hangnails, scabs, boogers, toe jam:  all good.

Eileen ,
Thanks for the Snow White story.That was pretty funny!

Halloween is good, an in your face, we are not afraid of you, thumb in the nose at the devil and death. It should be done in that spirit, not in a spirit of communion with evil and death.

Thanks.  Sometimes, overthinking is all I can remember to do.

Great article as usual!  I don’t think it can be said too many times, or emphasized enough in a world where we all splinter off into our own little enclaves - the Catholic Church:  here comes everyone!

Sadly, after the local art school denizens on our block pulled out the super freaky decorations last year and the three year old had nightmares about giant spiders, and given her current normal four year old preoccupation with death, we’re being mellow for Halloween this year. We’re doing jack o’lanterns and dressing up and going to a few houses on our new block (a few inflatable ghosties and ghoulies)to beg for candy, but not to the candy and haunted house meccas of other neighborhoods. She wants to be either a ghost a la Charlie Brown or a Viking or a pirate. And then she decided a year ago that for the All Saints party she’s going to be Mary Magdalen because “She was a bad girl who met Jesus and became good. And in that painting there’s a skull and a bottle of perfume.” Not sure which painting she was going on about.

I grew up in an odd milieu. Halloween was basically associated with Devil worship in the church/cult we attended at the time and for years I was shown (not by my parents,  mercifully) videos and interviews about how small children went trick or treating and invariably ended up becoming Wiccans or Satanists and then WOULD GO STRAIGHT TO HELL. For some reason, these people thought that scaring five year olds straight was the way to get them to love Jesus. That, combined with a healthy fear of the preternatural, made me neurotic about Halloween until that glorious year my mother sewed me a tiger costume, purchased face paint and told ten year old me to meet my friends and go trick or treating for heaven’s sake. So I did, and it was awesome.

I’ve often mused about the taste of brain but mostly about why people feel so disgusted by the thought of eating them. I suppose it harken back to a time when human reasoning and superstition was such that to bring up such vulgar imagery is to revel in the ghoulish but unless one is vegan, we all already eating flesh.  It seems odd to me that people smell a streak and think, ‘mmmm, flesh’ but then when it comes to brains we are all ‘oohh, gross.’ As a proud American with Mexican descent, i enjoy a bowl of munudo every now and then… So cow and pig flesh good, dog meat no, cow intestines and pig feet yes, brains no.  Clearly, when i tell everyone that i drink blood every weekend, that would cause some stirs but nothing - i guess you can’t shock anybody anymore.

Just to put in my own two cents:
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A number of years ago I read an article about the “underlying theme” of current horror movies. I stopped watching slasher movies (too graphic for my taste) but I remember “Nightmare on Elm Street” was used as an example:
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Basically the parents of the young people are “not there” to help them. The mother in “Nightmare” was an alcoholic, the father had obviously left years ago. “Freddy” begins his attacks on the kids who had sex with each other—he didn’t attack virgins (male or female). The young girl who managed to keep getting away had not yet had sex with her boyfriend, but it was close.
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So the underlying theme is that parents were not around to guide them through adolescence and their emerging sexuality. The kids needed love and turned to each other, but they did not know the consequences of sex (the monster).
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I don’t know if this contributes to the conversation. It’s just that the fear aroused by monster movies is derived from real frightening experiences, which is another explanation for their attraction.

I’ve been pretty harsh in judging Catholics who avoid Halloween altogether, but I guess you’re right: this is a “to each his own” sort of situation. Personally, after all my years as an Evanglical Protestant, I revel in the spookiness of the day.

Y’ask me, the real danger from the American celebration of All Hallows’ Eve is insulin resistance.

I mean, ye gods, the bags of candy these kids get. Apart from a splurge on the holiday itself, we try to limit them to having a piece after dinner for their dessert (if they sufficiently finish their veggies). But that means we have bowlfuls of the stuff hanging ‘round the house all year. Last year, every time we’d get the candy almost finished, another sugarfest would come along and replenish the supply.

Halloween candy gets down to a handful, and then, WHAM, Christmas. Christmas gets down to a handful, and then WHAM, Lent puts a freeze on it (no candy after supper except on Sundays and Feast Days), and then, WHAM, Easter replenishes our stocks. I think the bowls finally got empty in late June.

And all along I’m thinking about the fact that, last year, when I realized I was 20 pounds overweight and needed to lose it, and had no luck at all losing it by cutting fats, but then opted to try going LOW CARB and lost it all in 5 months….

...I think about that, and I look at the kids’ endlessly overflowing bowls of colored sugar and think, “This can’t be good.”

Our approach to Halloween is this: we figure that when we watch movies like The Mummy, Dracula, and the like, we’re not rooting for the monster; we’re rooting for Brendan Fraser, Van Helsing, the monster hunters.  At least we are. So our kids dress up as the heroes.  This year we decorated our house as the Avengers’ mansion (coolness) and we have a Batman, Captain America, and Thor.  When one is little, playacting a bad guy gets confusing, so we let them play the good guys.

Karen—
The “good guy” vs the “evil monster” movies are a different genre than the teenage slasher movies. They are of a more classic theme—the hero must destroy the “monster” (i.e. his violent sex drive) before he wins the lady.
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I enjoy reading film critic magazines.

Great Article!  This is one of the many reasons I love being Catholic.  I struggle a bit with the tendency to overthink and try to get my holiday celebrations “right”.  But, I’m finally coming to realize that God may be asking each family to celebrate a little differently.  As long as I’m not doing something against the faith I will be following my conscience in this regard.

Oh, and for some of us, the wisest thing is to not go to our mothers. There are some mothers that become severely offended and hurt when adult children choose to not carry on certain family holiday traditions in their own homes.  Maybe that’s why I struggle with celebrating the “right” way.

@R.C. We literally count down seven days to the round of colds/flu that issue forth from the candy orgy.  “Sugar kills all your white blood cell soldiers”, I tell my little ghouls.  They think about it for a second, and then continue wolfing it down.  When they are done they beg for more with an astonishing desperation.

@ EC and Anna Lisa—This is why my wife and I will ration the candy the kids collect.  Yes, it’s a centrally planned economy, but I don’t think Holy Mother Church will mind it in this instance… :)

Good.  “...because it prepares us to deal with the real thing, which will surely come along sooner or later”.

Our city for years would do Trick or Treating on the last Sunday before real Halloween in the afternoon (unlike all the little towns around us that would do it on the night of the 31st).  So when my husband and I first bought our house in our little subdivision we got over 350 trick or treaters!  I had to send him to the store to get more and one year I ended up giving out applesauce packets the last half hour (the shame).  It was, however, a great opportunity to meet the neighbors and their kids.  The past few years they have moved our trick or treating time to match the towns around us and we’ve gotten less kids (by maybe only 100) but it still always seems like we have a steady stream of masked faces asking for candy.  I ration it out to one piece per kid and I don’t let them pick so I don’t run out.  It’s crazy.

Posters above do realize that zombies only eat living human brains, right? ;) so while you may think giving a zombie a good recipe for pig brain scramble would alleviate one seeing you as a delicious main course, it won’t.

Haha Michelle, that was my thought, too: Um, I thought we were talking about human brains? :)

Simcha, you made my day! Sorry to hand you lemons, but you sure made lemonade with them. Just goes to show that great brains taste—er, *think* alike!

@Rob B - Congratulations on your adoptions!  Enjoy their first Trick or Treating!

OK, folks, once and for all.

Dead + possessed by a superhuman spirit (demon) = vampire.
Dead + possessed by a subhuman spirit (?) = zombie.

If the only thing animating the body is a demon, you can forget about it wanting to receive Communion.

sigh…seriously?

@Howard: A zombie is reanimated by an outside actor or a more modern theory holds a virus of some sort, but not a spirit.  see also, http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/articles/395145/20121017/real-zombies-sci-fi-andrew-voak-parasites.htm

I cannot believe that even the Catholic blogosphere now has to talk about zombies…

I take a completely different approach to the issue of Halloween candy consumption. I allow my kids to eat it all in a total frenzy, and voila, it’s gone within a week. No one has ever gotten sick, there’s no power struggles over the candy rationing, if the kids are sugar buzzed, it’s short lived, and their teeth are only bombarded with sugar for a short time.

And that’s why I love this Church so much!  She really does have everything.  Thank heaven that Jesus started it and not me; He’s so much more creative.

Awesome article Simcha.  Thank you.

This time of year seems to bring out even more evangelical nonsense with their “harvest parties” and “non-threatening” costume parties.  It all makes me think of Ned Flanders for some reason, maybe because his stereotypical Simpson’s character is just so true to form.  Driving home last evening listening to my local protestanty radio station, I got the whole gamut on the evils of this terrible romish holiday.  Then the very next caller asked a question about the real age of the earth and the community-bible college guys both reaffirmed that the world is 6000 years old, but God made it look old when he created it.  Yeah.  However, I almost passed a Baby Ruth bar when a caller asked how Mark could have written a Gospel if he wasn’t one of the original twelve.  Their answer?  It was given to him as Tradition by Peter.

“How delightful it is to be Catholic, when so few things are forbidden—so few things are out of the question”, Amen, Alleluia!

This is awesome, I never comment but I read your blog and articles all the time….(I actually attended your wedding!) anyway, I tell people all the time that’s the beauty of the Church! If one of my kids wants to dress up as “a Victorian bride of Dracula” go right ahead! Ive never heard of anyone dressing up as a witch at six only then to become a wicken…If you give you kids a good foundation of their faith whats the big old deal? Its Halloween for petes sake!!!

I’m just having such a hard time accepting the way Holloween is celebrated here in the US. Something in me just doesn’t see it right. We are suppose to be celebrate the Saints and we are celebrating it by wearing scary costumes and asking for candy. I can’t put 2 and 2 together, sorry. It makes more sense to celebrate the Saints by going to mass or even throwing a party of which you don’t have to dress up, just go as ourselves, like a normal party. and please don’t get me wrong, I am all for dressing up, my kids love to dress up and even pretend they are scary monsters, but I am having a hard time squaring off as that being the appropiate way to celebrate All Hallow’s Eve. In South America, we start celebrating Christmas on Christmas Eve. Please forgive me, as I am from another culture, so it may be that I am blinded by my culture’s traditions.

I have one rule for my kids’ Halloween costumes.  They are not allowed to dress as an evil character.  So no witches, bad guys or ghouls.  Here are some of the costumes they’ve made from stuff we had at home over the years:  Indian, George Washington, clown, Peter Pan, Indiana Jones, gorilla, king, Star Wars characters, hunter, election ballot (with proper names marked), Winnie the Pooh,etc.

ken ,
I’m with you on when to start celebrating Christmas.We’re pretty much the only ones I know who still wait to put the tree & decorations up on Christmas Eve. We leave them up through January 6th.

Growing up, we participating enthusiastically with Halloween, but with one exception: no gory, creepy stuff.  Our Jack-o-Lanterns always had happy faces or even a cross and our costumes were just normal dress-up options, like cowboys or princesses or hunters or scarecrows.  We never felt like we missed out on anything, but neither did we have to wrestle with the question of whether or not we were flirting too much with the bad stuff. If I ever have kids, this is probably the approach I will take—especially because the really creepy stuff gives me the willies! :)

Theresa, my upbringing was like yours & I honestly enjoyed being a ladybug, Indian princess, etc.  But then we switched dramatically (due to my mother’s “conversion”) to a home environment where everything had to be religious and holy.  We even *almost* stopped giving Christmas gifts because the whole points of Christmas was supposed be going to MASS and nothing was supposed to overshadow Mass (so we did a FEW gifts on a different day to keep a *little* festivity but still keep Christmas itself all about going to Mass).  You can imagine how much fun holidays were then!! :s Bleh.  (Did I mention we canned birthday gifts, too?) 

All this said, we aren’t doing Halloween.  And I must admit it really bothers me when people judge the non-Halloween-celebraters as “too holy” for the day, etc.  I take secret joy in doing perfectly-licit-but-non-holy-things-that-make-my-“holy”-mom-squeal.  “Bless me Father for I have sinned…” but its true.

Our reasons for skipping Halloween include
1) my husband hates dressing up.  He finds it awkward to pretend to be something/someone.  Call it social awkwardness or what you want.  That’s just him.
2) my daughter is extremely sensitive to seeing blood, even fake blood, that Halloween just makes her kinda queesy.  So she’s happier focusing on planting Fall mums, decorating with pretty wreathes, and pressing Fall leaves.  That’s just her.
3) As a family, we believe that (unless it is a Huge Moral Issue) the people with the strongest opinion in a matter win the day.  So since the rest of us are kinda ambivalent about Halloween, we bow to the two who don’t like dressing up or seeing ugly stuff. 

End of MY story.  I’m sure everyone who skips the holiday has his own.  Thank you Simcha, for recognizing the validity of each one!!