Honest mirth and old customs on All Hallows' Eve
All Saints' Day is the third high festival of Autumn (after Michaelmas and Harvest Thanksgiving). It is then right and proper that it is surrounded by customs which reflect this. The pumpkins, apples, and nuts of the season are a rich and joyous bounty which should be enjoyed on All Hallows' Eve. This itself is an anticipation of the feast day. As Donne famously declared:
in Paradise, the fruits were ripe the first minute, in Heaven it is always autumn, His mercies are ever in their maturity.
The rich bounty of Autumn shared on All Hallows' Eve is a foretaste of what the collect of the feast describes as "those unspeakable joys" which are set before us, the promise declared in the Gospel of the day: "for great is your reward in heaven".
The other aspect of All Hallows' Eve, of course, is the spooky. Autumn is not a 'season of death' but it is a time quite naturally shot through with intimations of mortality: falling leaves, darker days, the approach of "the year's midnight". As such, the festive celebration of ghoulies and ghosties, of eerie stories and shadows, is a reminder of an abiding sense that life does not end with death, that a dull materialism which proclaims the finality of death cannot is contrary to human experience over millennia.
This sense and experience is caught up in the celebration of All Saints' Day, when the Church proclaims the beatific vision which awaits us and which "a great multitude, when no man could number" (from the Epistle) now enjoys. In the joy of All Saints' Day we see indeed that "Autumn is not the season of decay or death, but one of wealth and renewal".
In a recent Tweet, John Milbank stated:
I’m just astonished at the number of Anglican clergy and laity who piously oppose Halloween instead of trying to integrate it into the liturgical process. This is a new illustration of the way a moralising Clergy have eroded Church attendance by opposing folk culture.
Milbank is, of course, correct that the opposition to Hallowe'en amongst some Anglicans is a tiresome repetition of the old Puritan hostility to popular festivity. Against this we should receive afresh the teaching of that great Anglican theologian James I (yes, a topic for another day) in his Book of Sports, refuting suggestions "that no honest mirth or recreation is lawful or tolerable in our religion".
our pleasure likewise is, that after the end of divine service our good people be not disturbed, letted or discouraged from any lawful recreation ... nor from having of May-games, Whitsun-ales, and Morris-dances; and the setting up of May-poles and other sports therewith used: so as the same be had in due and convenient time, without impediment or neglect of divine service: and that women shall have leave to carry rushes to the church for the decorating of it, according to their old custom.
Note, however, that these festivities occur after divine service and that the only liturgical expression is the modest and decent decorating of the parish church with greenery. There is a wisdom here which challenges Milbank's insistence on the need for incorporating festive customs "into the liturgical process". Preserving the "decent order" of the liturgy requires that it is not crowded by ceremonies or symbols, and that the focus of Common Prayer is not undermined by either the overpoweringly gaudy or the distractingly anarchic. It is also the case that festive customs can have a goodness and integrity apart from the liturgy: liturgical incorporation is not required in order for them to be good. Such goodness derives from "our creation, preservation, and all the blessings of this life".
Strangely, I find it much easier to find a place for Halloween in our liturgical rhythms than Harvest. I can never escape the sense of the Old Testament inveighing against fertility rites at Harvest services!
ReplyDeleteSam, many thanks for your comment. I am afraid I am a determined fan of Harvest Thanksgiving :-). The old Michaelmas quarterly Communion, of course, was a form of Harvest Thanksgiving. I also think it encourages a necessary agrarianism, reminding us that we are 'rooted' in land and in the cycles of nature, and that all is the gift of God. When it comes to Hallowe'en, I really am rather unsure as to how it is given liturgical expression beyond being the eve of the feast itself. Now this in itself means it is a reflection of the Church's liturgical rhythms. My instinct is to say that the festivities of All Hallows' Eve do not require liturgical expression because their role is to prepare us for the feast of light and we see this light more clearly having reminded ourselves of the darkness.
DeleteBrian.