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Vatican Council II stressed the communal significance of the celebration of the Eucharist,
which sacrifice is offered both for all living and dead, and emphasized the love and mercy
of God. The lasting prevalence of masses offered for individual deceased along with
various expressive behaviours observed in the course of my five·year experience as a
member of different Catholic parishes in 51. John's suggests relative traditionalism in local
Catholic worship.
The increasing influence of the Church in the late Middle Ages gradually resulted in an
eschatological reinterpretation of this world and the next; to tunnoil followed by rest were
substituted the idea of a struggle between God and the devil. This conceptualization was
obsclVcd in Conche,
Their concept of the world and the afterlife was in tenns of God and the
devil, good and evil, and white and black. 1
but goes back a long way. Bennett affinns that belief in ghosts, even following the
Reformation, not only survived in all religious groups, but received due recognition
through dogmatic, if differing, definitions. For the Catholic Church ghosts served as
evidence for purgatory, and Protestants redefined them in even less reassuring lemlS: they
were not human souls but demons masquerading as such and sent by Satan to deceive. 2
To this legacy would be owed all the Gothic horrors of the nineteenth century and our
inbred fear of ghosts. Medals, which had to be worn especially when going OUI, assured
casual protection against encounters of "evil spirits" or "lost souls," and prayer along with
some religious symool placed where the thing had appeared laid it 10 resl.) Dr. Jones used
to say this prayer afler mass:
Blessed Michael, the Archangel, defend us in the day of battle
Be our safeguard against the wickedness and snares of the devil
May God rebuke him, we humbly pray,
and do that, Prince of the heavenly host,
Send Satan down to hell, and with him all the other wicked spirits who
wander through the world seeking to ruin the souls? [interferenc;rl....4
Ghostly disturbance was once taken for granted in Tilting, but in confidence of sure
remedy:
lCascy 97.
2Scnnctl, "Ghosl" 7.
3Cascy 266.
4 MUN FLA 87 -159/C 12036.