In the Old Testament “Moses spoke to the people, saying, “Fear the Lord, your God, and observe… all his statutes and commandments.” In the Gospel when a scribe who is a follower of Moses asks Jesus about Moses’ commandments, Jesus does not tell people to “Fear.” He tells them only to “Love.” To those who live this love, Jesus says, “You are not far from the Community of God.”
Fear plays a large part in the origins of Halloween. Some of its rituals are derived from the fearsome Celtic military festival of Samhain. Celtic military commanders, home from practicing battlefield blood sacrifice, would collude with their priestly sorcerers, the Druids, to practice homefield blood sacrifice. They would put the people’s animals and the people themselves into great bonfires. Julius Caesar in 55 BC writes, the Celts “believed that gods delighted in the slaughter of prisoners and criminals, and when the supply of captives ran short, they sacrificed even the innocent.” The people feared becoming ghosts, burned into smoke as sacrifice in the fire. They also feared seeing ghosts, people burned as sacrifice in past fires, believing they visited the earth on that night. During the ritual the Celts dressed in costumes, for example, animal heads and skins. During the 731 to 741 reign of Pope Gregory III, All Saints Day was shifted on the calendar. Celebrating not fearful people but loving people, All Saints Day was permanently moved to November 1 and thus its Hallowed Eve to the night before. It may well have been done to ‘Christianize’ Militarism’s deadly Samhain ritual. All Saints Day (Nov 1) and its Hallowed Eve (Oct 31) carried over some of Samhain elements, for example, dressing up, but as saints. The saints were dead but not ghoulish wanting to steal you away. They were inspirational coming to share their loving witness. Their loving witness was for people to no longer be fearful of War Lords and their cult of worship. No longer be fearful of Militarist’s and their bonfires of greed consuming the flesh overtly once a year nor consuming it covertly every day. No longer be fearful of Militarists who terrorize people; sacrificing people on the battlefield routinely nor sacrificing people on the homefield routinely – whether in bonfires or through poverty, hunger, homelessness.
The conversion of fearsome military commanders is taken up in every era by loving peacemakers. One such loving peacemaker is Dorothy Day. The coming month of November, which begins with All Saints Day, has Dorothy’s day of birth, November 8, 1897 and day of death, November 29, 1980. Dorothy never feared military commanders. She refused to pay war taxes which diverted the people’s money away from the people’s basic needs and toward the military’s commanders and their still fearsome and terrorizing wars. She refused to participate in nuclear defense drills in which military commanders practiced an updated and global version of terrorizing and sacrificing the people in great bonfires, assuring the people that if they just “duck and cover” they could survive the bonfire of a nuclear bomb. Dorothy too dispelled fear and did all she could to remove the terror of poverty from people’s lives. She opened up Houses of Hospitality for people terrorized by poverty. “(W)e had started the first woman’s House of Hospitality… (then) rented an old apartment in a condemned tenement on Fourth Street to put up three of the men who had joined with the work… three more people were sleeping in the little store on Fifteenth street… where meals were being served… Margaret came back from the hospital with her baby to this apartment and we all participated in the care of the baby when she was ill.” “The rent was paid by contributions from working women in the parish of the Immaculate Conception Church, women who themselves lived in cold water flats.” “We have all known the long loneliness and we have learned that the only solution is love and that love comes with community.” Dorothy gave witness to the Communion of Saints throughout her life of love, “How do I love God whom I cannot see when I do not love those I can see?” “I really only love God as much as I love the person I love the least.”
Prayer: Spirit, help us to live our love in action.
Question: Dorothy said, “We must talk about poverty, because people insulated by their own comfort lose sight of it.” Who are the people, insulated by their own comfort, with whom I could talk about poverty?
October 31, 2021 Gospel Mark 12:28-34 Thirty First Sunday in Ordinary Time