The Church must speak about the devil.

A good many people who are not well versed in the history and traditions of Christianity mistakenly believe that Halloween is a holy day, of sorts, for Satanists and Devil worshipers.Folks who have grown up in a Protestant culture- or even a secular one- often don't realize that many of the customs of Halloween come from the observance of the two holy days; All Saints Day and All Souls Day. (November 1 and 2).
However, in keeping with talk of the Devil that goes on this time of year, I've copied and pasted an article written by Cardinal Georges Cottier, O.P., the former Theologian to the Pontifical Household, before he retired from that position.
The following is a translation of Cardinal Cottier’s introduction to the book "Presidente degli Esorcisti — Esperienze e Delucidazioni di Don Gabriele Amorth" which was posted at Zenit.org on January 22, 2006:

The Church must speak about the devil. Though he sinned, the fallen angel has not lost all the power he had, in the governance of the world, according to God’s plan. Now he uses this power for evil. John’s Gospel calls him “the prince of this world” (John 12:31) and also in the First Letter of John, one reads: “The whole world is in the power of the evil one” (1 John 5:19). Paul speaks of our battle against spiritual powers (cf. Ephesians 6:10-17). We can also refer to Revelation.

We must fight not only against the human, but also the superhuman, forces of evil in their origin and inspiration – suffice it to think of Auschwitz, of the massacres of entire peoples, of all the horrendous crimes that are committed, of the scandals of which little ones and the innocent are victims, of the success of the ideologies of death, etc.

It is appropriate to recall some principles. The evil of sin is committed by a free will. Only God can penetrate the depth of a person’s heart; the devil does not have the power to enter that sanctuary. He acts only on the exterior, on the imagination and on feelings of a sentient origin. Moreover, his action is limited by the permission of Almighty God.

The devil generally acts through temptation and deceit; he is a liar (cf. John 8:44). He can deceive, induce to error, cause illusion and, probably more than arouse vices, he can support the vices and the origins of the vices that are in us.

In the Synoptic Gospels, the first apparition of the devil is the temptation in the desert, when he subjects Jesus to several incursions (cf. Matthew 4:11 and Luke 4:1-13). This event is of great importance.

Jesus cured sicknesses and pathologies. Altogether, they refer to the devil, because all disorders afflicting humanity are reducible to sin, of which the devil is instigator. Among Jesus’s miracles are liberation from diabolical possessions, in the precise sense. We see in particular in Saint Luke that Jesus orders the devils who recognize him as Messiah.

The devil is much more dangerous as tempter than through extraordinary signs or astonishing external manifestations, because the gravest evil is sin. It is no accident that we ask in the Lord’s Prayer: “Lead us not into temptation.” Against sin, the Christian can fight victoriously with prayer, prudence, in humility knowing the fragility of human freedom, with recourse to the Sacraments, above all Reconciliation and the Eucharist. He must also ask the Holy Spirit for the gift of discernment, knowing that the gifts of the Holy Spirit are received with the grace of Baptism.

Saint Thomas and Saint John of the Cross affirm that one has three tempters: the devil, the world (we certainly recognize this in our society) and oneself; that is, self-love. Saint John of the Cross maintains that the most dangerous tempter is oneself, because we alone deceive ourselves.

In the face of deceit, it is desirable that the Catholic faithful have an ever-more-profound knowledge of Christian doctrine. The apostolate must be promoted on behalf of the Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which is of extraordinary usefulness to combat ignorance. The devil perhaps is instigator of this ignorance: he distracts man from God and it is a great loss that can be contained by promoting an adequate apostolate in the media, in particular television, considering the amount of time that many people spend watching television programs, often with contents that are culturally inconsistent and immoral.

The action of the devil is also unleashed against the (priests) of the Church. In 1972, Pope Paul VI spoke of the “smoke of Satan that has entered the temple of God.” He was alluding to the sins of Christians, to the devaluation of the moral law, the growth of moral decadence (consider the history of the religious orders and congregations, in which the need for reform to react to decadence has always been noted), to yielding to the temptations in the pursuit of a career, of money and of wealth, in which members of the clergy themselves can participate, committing sins that cause scandal.

The exorcist can be like a Good Samaritan — but he is not the Good Samaritan — as sin is a graver reality. A sinner who remains set in his sin is more wretched that one who is possessed. The conversion of heart is the most beautiful victory over the influence of Satan, against which the Sacrament of Reconciliation has an absolutely central importance, because in the mystery of the Redemption, God has liberated us from sin and gives us, when we have fallen, the restoration of his friendship.

The Sacraments have a priority over the sacramentals, the category to which exorcisms belong; these are requested by the Church, but not as a priority. If this approach is not considered, the risk exists of disturbing the faithful. Exorcism cannot be considered as the only defence against the action of the devil, but as a necessary spiritual means in those cases where the existence of specific cases of diabolic possession have been confirmed.

It seems that the possessed are more numerous in pagan countries, where the Gospel has not been disseminated and where magic practices are more widespread. In other places, a cultural element endures where Christians conserve an indulgent tendency in regard to ancient forms of superstition. Moreover, it must be considered that alleged cases of possession can be explained by present-day medicine and psychiatry and that the solution to certain phenomena may consist in good psychiatric treatment. When a difficult case is manifested in practice, it is necessary to get in contact with a psychologist and an exorcist; it is advisable to make use of psychiatrists of Catholic formation.

A course on these topics has recently been instituted in the Regina Apostolorum Pontifical Athenaeum. It also seems opportune to include such formation in seminaries, in a balanced and wise dimension, avoiding excesses and constrictions.

The Jack-O-Lantern.

Growing up,I never gave a lot of thought about some of our Halloween traditions. If I'd ever asked my parents about why we carve Jack-O-Lanterns, I'm sure they wouldn't have known. It was just something we did.

My son will be turning two in a few weeks and I carved his first Jack-O-Lantern a couple of nights ago. Of course, at two, he's too young to be asking questions about it but I thought I'd read up on the tradition so I'd know what to tell him when the time came.

According to most of what I've seen online, the Jack-O-Lantern came to the U.S. with the Irish immigrants who came here to escape the potato famine. The Jack-O-Lanterns in Ireland had originally been made from turnips.The immigrants began fashioning the lanterns out of pumpkins because the squash was cheaper and more abundant here than the turnip.

The story as to why they carved Jack-O-Lanterns goes back to an old legend of a man named Stingy Jack. The man in the story was called that because he was a tightwad and very stingy with his money. Not only was he cheap, but he was a drunkard as well. But, unlike a good many drunks, he did not become freer with his spending when he drank.

One Halloween, Stingy Jack was spending the evening at a local pub....getting drunk as usual. He struck up a conversation with a stranger who turned out to be the Devil himself. Seeing a chance for a free drink, Jack made a bargain with the Devil; his soul in exchange for another drink. When Jack had finished the drink, the Devil changed himself into a silver coin so Jack could pay the bar keep. Instead of giving the coin to the bar keep, Jack put the coin in his pocket. Unfortunately for the Devil, Jack had a Rosary in his pocket and the crucifix made the Devil powerless to change back. Jack agreed to release the Devil on condition that the Devil not collect his soul for ten years. The Devil agreed and he was on his way back to Hell.

Ten years passed. It was Halloween and Jack was making his way home from another pub when the Devil appeared to fetch Jack's soul. Jack asked the Devil if he would allow Jack to have an apple before they left for Hell. The Devil saw no harm in that and climbed to the top of a nearby apple tree to get an apple for the poor man. When the Devil reached the top, Jack took out his Rosary and wrapped it around the base of the tree and trapped the Devil. Jack told the Devil that he would remove the Rosary and free him if the Devil would not take his soul. Again, the Devil had no choice but to agree to the bargain.

When Jack finally died of old age, Saint Peter refused him entry into Heaven because of his drunkenness and because he had been too stingy on Earth to help the widows and orphans and others in need of charity. Not knowing what else to do, Jack went down to Hell, but the Devil was so angry at having been tricked by Jack that he would not allow Jack to stay in Hell.

Jack was condemned to spend eternity walking the face of the Earth. As he walked away, the Devil threw him an ember from the fires of Hell. Jack carved out a turnip and put the ember inside to make a lantern.

Who Ya Jivin' With That Cosmik Debris ?

I was looking around for a video of Zappa doing Zoomby Woof to continue my Halloween theme. Found one of Dweezil and Steve Vai doing it...but I couldn't embed the better version. So, in it's place, I've posted Zappa doing Cosmik Debris.

A Halloween Phone call to Philippines.

Before meeting my wife in 2003, I had traveled to Philippines a couple of times; specifically, to the island of Siquijor. For those of you unfamiliar with the country, Siquijor has a reputation of being an island of shaman ( AKA " quack doctors" ) voodooesque shenanigans and an assortment of things that go bump in the night. Having once had a friend living there, I've spent a fair amount of time on the island.

I've had experiences with a quack doctor which I went into in an earlier post [ A visit with a quack Doctor in Siquijor ] so there's no need to go into that again here.

It was Halloween 2002. It was still early morning here in Georgia. It was, however, early evening in Philippines when I called my friend for a chat. Her teen-aged sister answered the phone; I was fond of the sister and decided to talk to her for a few minutes. I asked what she was doing that evening and she replied that she was putting onions in the window. I wasn't quite sure what to make of that but, knowing her as I did, I suspected it was Halloween related.

"Why are you putting onions on the window?" I asked. She said she wasn't sure of the English word....but it was because of the "dead people who aren't really dead".
Obviously, she could not see me smiling and my voice did not betray me when I said I had heard of putting garlic in the window for protection but never onions. There was a pause. She asked something of someone in the house with her and then told me that the English word for the thing in the window was indeed garlic and not onion.....she had made a mistake in translation.

That was basically, the end of our conversation. I went on to talk to her older sister but I forget now what that particular conversation was about.

Now, five years afterwards, I'm wondering which "dead people who aren't really dead" she was referring to. Two things come to mind.It could be either zombies or vampires. I'm not really up on my Philippine folk lore and I don't know of any Filipino zombies.

The only vampire I know of is called the Manananggal .According to Wikipedia :

"A manananggal is described as being an older, beautiful woman (as opposed to an aswang), capable of severing its upper torso in order to fly into the night with huge bat-like wings to prey on unsuspecting, pregnant women in their homes; using an elongated proboscis-like tongue, it sucks the hearts of fetuses or blood of an unsuspecting, sleeping victim. The severed lower torso is left standing and it is said to be the more vulnerable of the two halves. Sprinkling salt or smearing crushed garlic or ash on top of the standing torso is fatal to the creature. The upper torso then would not be able to rejoin and will die at daybreak. The name of the creature originates from an expression used for a severed torso: Manananggal comes from the Tagalog, tanggal (cognate of Malay and Indonesian tanggal) which means to remove or to separate. Manananggal then means the one who separates itself from its lower body."

Also from the same article:

"Superstitious folk in the Visayan provinces still hang cloves of garlic or onion around windows, doors, etc. with the purpose of repelling this creature as well as the aswang.".......Siquijor is in the Visayas so, it actually could have been onions after all that girl was putting in the windows.

I know some of you may scoff, but, nothing happened to anyone in the household that Halloween. No one was attacked by any sort of vampire or zombie or even werewolf. Whatever it was....garlic or onions.....they seem to have done the trick.

Halloween Colors

The traditional colors of Halloween are orange and black.Black, I suppose, represents Death and mourning while the orange signifies the colors of the falling leaves of Autumn.Now, a new color has been added.....green, as in environmentally friendly "green".

Actually, I guess I'm not really talking about the greening of Halloween so much as I am the greening of something associated with that day. Namely, funerals and burials. You know, the whole disposing of the dead sort of thing.

Burials, like everything else we do in the United States is no longer suitable. We just can't get anything right. Now-a-days, if we want to show how enlightened and progressive we are, we must make plans to have our final remains taken care of in a eco-friendly way.

You have two basic choices: You can opt for the eco-burial in an eco-cemetery. There, your corpse is laid to rest without the use of that nasty embalming process. Of course, there's no metal casket. As one website put it: "The body is prepared for burial without chemical preservatives and is buried in a simple shroud or biodegradable casket that might be made from locally harvested wood, wicker or even recycled paper, perhaps even decorated with good-bye messages from friends." Oh, isn't that a lovely thought.....being buried in a casket made of recycled paper with my dear friends and family drawing little smiley-face designs on the outside. :)

The cemetery will forever be kept.....or rather unkempt....in a "natural state". No cutting the grass or removal of trees.

Your second option for a greener hereafter is cremation. After your corpse is cremated the ashes are put into the handy-dandy bio urn. Made from compacted coconut shells mixed with a layer of organic fertilizer, the bio urn also contains a tree seed which will presumably germinate posthumously. Simply bury the urn, and wait . Then.....voila....a tree !!!!!

Now, I understand that you all want to leave with a small carbon footprint. I'm not at all certain which way is the best for that. Somebody else is going to have to figure that out for you.