The Haunted Hike
(and Spaghetti Supper)

For more than ten years, St. Matthew's has celebrated Halloween with the Haunted Hike. The Hike occurs on a Sunday evening, near October 31 st , just as dark is settling on the Churchyard (e.g. the cemetery). Then children, and some parents, are led along a trail, or journey themselves, through the Yard where ghoulish residents (i.e. high school students) of the Yard accost them.

You may be asking yourself, Why would a church have a haunted hike through a cemetery? Here's your answer.

Before Christianity came into being, Celts and Romans marked the end of the harvest and the coming of winter with festivals. The Celts called theirs Samhain, which was celebrated on November 1 st . The night before, the Celts believed that the boundary between the living and dead faded away so that the Druid priest could communicate with the dead about the future. Also, ghosts would pass over that night causing trouble and damaging crops. The Druids would build huge sacred bonfires where the people, wearing costumes, would gather to make sacrifices. Also, in the late fall, the Romans celebrated Feralia, which commemorated the passing of the dead, and Pomona, the goddess of fruit and trees, presumably in celebration of the gathering of the harvest. Eventually, under Roman rule, the Celt and the Roman rites were combined into one day.

In an effort to replace theses Pagan rites, Pope Boniface IV marked November 1 st as All Saints Day as a means of honoring the saints and martyrs. All-hallows or All-hallowmas, which comes from the Middle English word for All Saints' Day, was celebrated the night before. Soon following the establishment of these feast days, the church added November 2 nd as All Souls' Day so all the dead were honored. Big bonfires, parades and costumes just like Samhain marked the festival day.

Down through history, the church recognized the human need to commemorate the dead and to mark the beginning of shorter days. In old days, in the northern cultures, the shorter days signified the onset of winter, a time of harsh weather and death. The season of darkness was a scary time back then for real reasons. These ancient Pagan festivals helped fortify the people for these difficult times. Today, we celebrate Halloween as a community event. Halloween allows us to remember the dead, but maybe even more importantly, it causes us to remember our mortality. Because of improvements in longevity and hospitals, many people, especially the young, no longer have an understanding of mortality. Halloween not only reminds us of our mortality, but also, through the church, we remember Jesus Christ's victory over it. So at St. Matthew's our young people bravely navigate the Yard and then enter into the lighted Fellowship Room to celebrate with their family and friends with the Spaghetti Supper. We remember that someday we will die, we remember our connection with those who have lived before us, and we celebrate that we will all be together again thanks to Jesus.

The source of the mentioned historical information comes from www.historychannel.com