Observing All Hallows' Eve

Although Halloween looks pagan, especially considering the slutty costume you can buy for $30 to make your 5 year old daughter look like a slutty prostitute, its origins are Christian according to Fisheaters website:

The Vigil of All Hallows' ("Hallows' Eve," or "Hallowe'en") came, in Irish popular piety, to be a day of remembering the dead who are neither in Purgatory or Heaven, but are damned, and these customs spread to many parts of the world. Thus we have the popular focus of Hallowe'en as the reality of Hell, hence its scary character and focus on evil and how to avoid it, the sad fate of the souls of the damned, etc.

How, or even whether, to celebrate Hallowe'en is a controversial topic in traditional circles. One hears too often that "Hallowe'en is a pagan holiday" -- an impossibility because "Hallowe'en," as said, means "All Hallows' Evening" which is as Catholic a holiday as one can get. Some say that the holiday actually stems from Samhain, a pagan Celtic celebration, or is Satanic, but this isn't true, either, any more than Christmas "stems from" the Druids' Yule, though popular customs that predated the Church may be involved in our celebrations (it is rather amusing that October 31 is also "Reformation Day" in Protestant circles -- the day to recall Luther's having nailed his 95 Theses to Wittenberg's cathedral door -- but Protestants who reject "Hallowe'en" because pagans used to do things on October 31 don't object to commemorating that event on this day)."

On All Saints Sunday, which this year is November 4 (first Sunday after All Hallows'/All Saints Day, Nov. 1) our church remembers/memorializes the Church Triumphant, saints of the church in heaven, by reading the names turned in by members. The other day while delivering the intercampus mail, I picked up a stack of cards so the names of my deceased family members and friends (the saints) could be read at the 8:30 service at Lytham Road. Then I noticed the cards are for Mill Run services. So forgive me, dear ones, if I scribble on your cards. It's the thought. . .