Saint Barbara (Halloween)
Did you know?
About 21 hundred years ago, a Halloween Tradition was initiated in Ireland, as a memorial celebration for the departed.
Like Lebanon, Ireland is a mountainous country, wherein people spend summer time high in the mountains, then travel back to their seashore towns in winter time. This annual moving out ritual is a hard time on the physical and emotional levels, often leading to sickness and death especially for old people. Gradually, Irish people correlated the fact of the increasing death rate among them, and the moving out season, which occurred in early November. To prevent death, pagan Irish priests encouraged their people to put on ugly, scary masks and outfits and go out dancing to cast away the spirit of death, which was believed to hover above them during that moving time.
As Ireland got Christianized with Saint Patrick in the 5th century, the Halloween tradition was Christianized also, and associated with All Saints Day, which the Catholic Church celebrates on Nov. 1st.
Saint Barbara, celebrated in the Maronite tradition on Dec. 4th, is the equivalent of the Irish Halloween if you want. It’s a time for us to remember with proud our martyrs, and ask for their intercession to remain faithful to the gift of faith their suffered to deliver to us sound and safe. Saint Barbara’s heroic life and death († 235) witness for God’s love, and inspire us to defend our faith and the truth of Jesus until death.
For more info about Saint Barabara go to www.maronite-heritage.com, click on the Maronites link, then Synxarion, then Dec. Go to www.pauline.org , then “A Saint A Day”, March 17th, for more info about St. Patrick.
God bless & have a blessed happy Saint Barbara Day.
Picture: Kindergarten children @ NDL School, dressed up for the occasion of St Barbara (Dec. 4th, 2006), watching a play about St Barbara. (Pic. taken by Nathalie Nasr, 2in1 studios).