I personally haven't seen any ghouls at my door in 5 years, but I've seen worse across the street from my house.
We live in front of the city cemetery. And as in other Catholic countries, Brazil celebrates Finados, or The Day of the Dead as it's also called in Mexico, a commemoration to those souls whom have passed on. In the 5th century, the Catholic church chose one day a year to pray for all the dead people that may or may not be remembered. Later in the 13th century, it was moved to coincide with the November 1st holiday of All Saints Day. (From this was spawned Halloween, or All Hollows Eve.) But the practice of dressing up as spirits comes from a Celtic new year's eve belief that the souls of the dead roamed the earth on that evening and could be warded off by offering sacrifices of food.)
Brazil does not celebrate Halloween, but Finados is a national holiday. All this week, the cemetery in front of my house has been bustling with activity, repairing, cleaning and painting tombs. Today and tomorrow thousands will come to put up flowers and candles, believing that they will attract the dead so that their prayers may be heard. Praying to the dead is a Catholic tradition that is doctrinally supported mainly by a passage from the book of 2 Maccabees, a book that protestants believe not to be a part of the biblical cannon.
Of course, the most memorable to all reasons to celebrate during this week is the anniversary of the start of the protestant reformation. For this, October 31 is known as Reformation Day, or the day that Martin Luther posted his 95 theses on the wooden church door in Wittenburg, Germany. He was really just trying to start a discussion about the Roman church's sanctioning of indulgences, and what better than to start the discussion on All Saints Day. Little did he know what would come of that as some nameless fellow took the theses and translated them from Latin to German and began to distribute it.
"Reformation Day is ripe for remembering an array of biblical truths — that the Scriptures are our only final authority (sola Scriptura); that God accepts us by grace alone, through faith alone, on the basis of Christ alone (justification); that God often uses the unlikeliest of people to turn the world upside down; that God doesn’t just raise up great individuals, but collections of people, veritable teams, each with his lot, and his own local cohort, to bring about widespread change; and all these conspiring to the glory of God alone (soli Deo gloria)." From the Desiring God Blog.
Pray with us for Brazil, that the bounds of darkness that surround this holiday tomorrow would be put to Light, the Gospel Light, the liberating freedom of undeserved grace mercy towards us by a one and only creator God, the father, and justification by His Son, Jesus Christ.
