St. Walpurga & Beltane
What are Catholics to think of the Witches' Bane?
Beltane is a pre-Christian bonfire festival on 1 An Cèitean (May 1) to encourage crops to grow and recalls the beginning of Summer. Pilgrims travelled to holy wells to offer prayers to Guardians of the wells. It is celebrated with a céilidh of food and drink with family and friends. Young girls rose early to wash their faces in the May dew for good for-tune. Bonfires were often so large, tall ladders were used to build them; the coals stayed lit around houses to keep fairies and sprites away. May Day traditions include picking flowers in the woods (and spending the night there), dancing around the May Pole, weaving red (god) and white (goddess) streamers around.
European Catholics implemented “May Crowning” rites of statues of Our Lady on 1 May in which Our Lady is the “woman clothed with the Sun and crowned with twelve stars” (Rev. 12). Equally, St. Walpurga, the “Apostle” of Germany and niece of St. Boniface, is a powerful force against witchcraft and the occult. The faithful seek her intercession in order to protect themselves from evil influences.
St. Walpurga’s Eve (30 April) or Walpurgisnacht is a response to the Saxon Hexxenacht, the May Eve gathering of witches and sorcerers. It is an appropriate time renounce attachment to evil and ask for her intercession for those “blinded by the god of the age” (2 Cor. 4.4).
Throughout Europe, the faithful often build bonfires on St. Wal-purga's Eve in order to ward off evil. St. Walpurga's Day (1 May) is celebrated by the faithful to further suppress paganism. Many make holy pilgrimages to St. Walpurga's tomb in Eichstätt on her feast day for oil that seeps from her relics, which is often distributed by Benedictine nuns.
(an excerpt from my recently published St. John Ogilvie Prayerbook)