Ghosts and Saints
Ghosts and Saints
Can you remember a scary movie from your childhood? I remember watching Dracula and being so scared I couldn’t face the TV screen. I had to watch it in the reflection off the dark windowpane at the opposite end of the living room. Occasionally I would block my ears so I wouldn’t hear the terrible scary music.
When the movie was over I was all alone, my family having gone to bed before the movie. I crept through a dark house trying not to step on the creaky floorboards. When I got to my bedroom I remembered the boogie man under the bed and paused at the bedroom door, wondering if I could leap from there to my bed and get under the covers before the boogie man grabbed my leg. I took a few paces back and ran with all my might, launched off at the door, landed in the bed and swept under the covers.
As I lay there quivering I heard a voice – Yvette, my wife – saying: “What on earth is wrong with you, Greg!?”
Scary movies can still get me…
With more and more South Africans celebrating Halloween, and more and more South Africans complaining about Halloween not being a South African holiday I wondered what all the fuss was about and read up a little. Thanks to Jim Harnish I learnt something really interesting about Halloween…
Halloween used to be an ancient Celtic festival celebrating the god of death, Samhein. Celts would gather around fires all night scarring one another with all things ghostly and ghoulish.
When St. Patrick (or at least the legend of St Patrick!), the first missionary to the Celts in Ireland, arrived he took it upon himself to do what few missionaries have ever done as successfully as him: allow the Gospel to infect the culture of his new home. Instead of seeking to convert the Celts to Christianity by giving up their culture, he sought to find aspects of Celtic culture that already had elements of Christianity in them so as to celebrate Christ’s already present nature in their midst.
The Celtic cross, a cross with a circle drawn around the centre, had its pre-cursor in the design in the side bar of this blog where a tiny cross is visible at the very centre.
Where the Celts prayed to the sprits of trees and animals and the sea in order to placate them, St. Patrick encouraged the Celts to worship the creator of nature who needed no placating. The Celts retained a deep connection with nature and many of their prayers reflect a deep devotion to the God of nature.
Legend has it that St. Patrick repeatedly helped the Celts move from fear to celebration and this was certainly his contribution to the festival of Samhein. Christian Celts celebrated All Saints day on November 1, the day after Samhein’s Festival. Slowly but surely the festival of death was transformed into “Halloween” or “Hallowed Eve” – the eve of All Saints Day. From the fear of death to the celebration of the saints of old, St Patrick helped liberate people from the Ghosts of the past in order that they might celebrate the Saints in eternity.
I think of my own ghosts. I think of the ghosts I meet in the lives of those who come to me haunted by their past regrets, failures, shame and traumas. I think of the ghosts in my congregations: habits, prejudices that keep us stuck in old ways. What will it take to be free from these ghosts?
I am reminded of the idea of the “wounded healer”: that the very thing that imprisons us can become the gift we offer to the world. A woman abused as a child finds healing for her past and becomes in turn a healer for other abused people.
This requires a lot of soul searching, talking with a trusted counsellor or friend but we affirm that eventually it is possible to be free, and more than that, to offer our wounds as healing gifts to the world.
Think of someone who in your life has been a saint – someone who helped you understand your faith in a new and powerful way. Make no mistake, at some point they probably struggled to make sense of their own past, their own pain. They would have had to confront old ghosts. It is probably because of this struggle that they were able to be a saint for you.
Halloween and All Saints Day is a celebration of the power of transformation: that the very same ghosts of our past can make us saints. Go, confront and befriend those ghosts…
Can you remember a scary movie from your childhood? I remember watching Dracula and being so scared I couldn’t face the TV screen. I had to watch it in the reflection off the dark windowpane at the opposite end of the living room. Occasionally I would block my ears so I wouldn’t hear the terrible scary music.
When the movie was over I was all alone, my family having gone to bed before the movie. I crept through a dark house trying not to step on the creaky floorboards. When I got to my bedroom I remembered the boogie man under the bed and paused at the bedroom door, wondering if I could leap from there to my bed and get under the covers before the boogie man grabbed my leg. I took a few paces back and ran with all my might, launched off at the door, landed in the bed and swept under the covers.
As I lay there quivering I heard a voice – Yvette, my wife – saying: “What on earth is wrong with you, Greg!?”
Scary movies can still get me…
With more and more South Africans celebrating Halloween, and more and more South Africans complaining about Halloween not being a South African holiday I wondered what all the fuss was about and read up a little. Thanks to Jim Harnish I learnt something really interesting about Halloween…
Halloween used to be an ancient Celtic festival celebrating the god of death, Samhein. Celts would gather around fires all night scarring one another with all things ghostly and ghoulish.
When St. Patrick (or at least the legend of St Patrick!), the first missionary to the Celts in Ireland, arrived he took it upon himself to do what few missionaries have ever done as successfully as him: allow the Gospel to infect the culture of his new home. Instead of seeking to convert the Celts to Christianity by giving up their culture, he sought to find aspects of Celtic culture that already had elements of Christianity in them so as to celebrate Christ’s already present nature in their midst.
The Celtic cross, a cross with a circle drawn around the centre, had its pre-cursor in the design in the side bar of this blog where a tiny cross is visible at the very centre.
Where the Celts prayed to the sprits of trees and animals and the sea in order to placate them, St. Patrick encouraged the Celts to worship the creator of nature who needed no placating. The Celts retained a deep connection with nature and many of their prayers reflect a deep devotion to the God of nature.
Legend has it that St. Patrick repeatedly helped the Celts move from fear to celebration and this was certainly his contribution to the festival of Samhein. Christian Celts celebrated All Saints day on November 1, the day after Samhein’s Festival. Slowly but surely the festival of death was transformed into “Halloween” or “Hallowed Eve” – the eve of All Saints Day. From the fear of death to the celebration of the saints of old, St Patrick helped liberate people from the Ghosts of the past in order that they might celebrate the Saints in eternity.
I think of my own ghosts. I think of the ghosts I meet in the lives of those who come to me haunted by their past regrets, failures, shame and traumas. I think of the ghosts in my congregations: habits, prejudices that keep us stuck in old ways. What will it take to be free from these ghosts?
I am reminded of the idea of the “wounded healer”: that the very thing that imprisons us can become the gift we offer to the world. A woman abused as a child finds healing for her past and becomes in turn a healer for other abused people.
This requires a lot of soul searching, talking with a trusted counsellor or friend but we affirm that eventually it is possible to be free, and more than that, to offer our wounds as healing gifts to the world.
Think of someone who in your life has been a saint – someone who helped you understand your faith in a new and powerful way. Make no mistake, at some point they probably struggled to make sense of their own past, their own pain. They would have had to confront old ghosts. It is probably because of this struggle that they were able to be a saint for you.
Halloween and All Saints Day is a celebration of the power of transformation: that the very same ghosts of our past can make us saints. Go, confront and befriend those ghosts…
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