Thinking about what costume to wear this Halloween?
Why not dress up in clothes or robes emulating the saints and martyrs of the Catholic Church?
While others welcome Halloween by wearing scary costumes and going trick-or-treating or playing pranks, parishioners at the Epiphany of Our Lord Co-Cathedral Parish in Lingayen, Pangasinan celebrated by dressing up to be holy.
On Sunday, parishioners joined the “March of the Saints” where young and old Catholics donned costumes of saints instead of scary costumes of ghosts and demons as they participated in this yearly spectacle in a bid to rid the hallowed tradition of All Saints’ Day of spooky Halloween practices.
Participants marched around the neighboring streets of the parish and back to the church to conclude the event through a celebration of the Holy Eucharist.
It also coincided with the solemn culmination of the month of the Most Holy Rosary.
Mr. Von Ryan Torio of the Epiphany of Our Lord Co-Cathedral Parish said this annual tradition is meant to celebrate the holiness of the saints because they serve as mirrors of God’s holiness.
“We should know that we are all called to holiness. We should be celebrating holiness so that children will grow up to be good and God-fearing like the saints they are imitating,” he said.
It also aims to counter the Western-inspired concept of Halloween and bring the celebration closer to its roots.
Halloween literally means “holy evening” and was meant to celebrate all holy men and women.
“We wanted to instill in the young that All Saints’ Day is about the saints and not about ghosts and monsters. Our generation as adults are used to that, so hopefully the next generation will be celebrating Halloween the proper way by bringing them closer to God through the saints they dress up like,” he said.
As more and more commercial establishments set up scary Halloween decorations and some local government units conduct ghouls and ghosts’ activities, Torio lamented that the modern celebration of Halloween had degenerated into an overly commercialized event.
“The March of the Saints is our way to redirect the observance of All Saints’ Day to their original intent, instead of the Halloween with gory costumes that have become popular in the country,” he said.
“It seems ideal but hopefully this practice will lead the children to dream of becoming like saints, not to be rich and famous, but to be saints,” Torio concluded.
May this modest parish event help reintroduce God into Filipino culture and the lives of every Filipino, so they will live in saint-like virtues, such as being charitable, selfless for others, humble, giving their time and all the little ways of becoming holy. (JCR/AMB/PIA Region 1)
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