Saints, Souls, and Candy

Halloween. It's the holiday no one really knows anything about. Secular viewpoints name it as the day you get candy and then eat all in one sitting. It's a time to dress up, either as something cute or ugly, beautiful or scary. We carve faces into pumpkins, although we don't know why, and some of us are just suspicious of the day in general. Or we may even hate this particular day with its witches, vampires, and ghouls. For those in the Church, all this not-knowing leads to a whole lot of guessing, half-truths, and just plain fear of the unknown. And some of it is common sense. A day where we can all be witches and little red devils, or a day when you can buy cauldrons and skulls at your friendly neighborhood Walgreens could certainly make any rational churchgoer cautious of a day that promulgates these affairs. But even with all the trappings, what is Halloween?

All Hallows Eve, short for All Hallows Evening, as in the evening before All Saints Day (Hallows meaning Holy Ones) was celebrated for centuries in the Church as a day of recognition and remembrance for those who have passed before us into death. This remembrance, though adapted alongside the pagan rituals found in the British Isles over a thousand years ago, simply infused pagan festivals with what the Church had taught for centuries regarding those who are "asleep in Christ." So over the years this same Holiday (Holy Day) became influenced by the trappings of the Harvest, the seasonal transition from Summer to Autumn, and the awareness that even in the midst of life and new harvests, there is always death to face in the end.

So while witches and broomsticks and Jack-O-Lanterns mark the secular celebration of Halloween, much like Santa Claus trumps images of Christ's Incarnation at Christmas, the Church should certainly not fear or lose the meaning of this Holiday. For Halloween and All Saints Day have already come and gone as I write this, yet we remain a people shaped by loss and grief. But even here on the cusp of death's precipice we do not see into the abyss only, but also into Advent. In this way the Church's calendar shows us that even as our Father holds those who are asleep, the Son is coming to make that peace known to the world.

I pray we as the Church never fear All Hallows Eve, for to fear it is to forget the hope of resurrection. Christians should never have to fear the trappings of death, for that's all the skulls and ghosts and coffins truly are in Halloween. They are sad little satires of death, clever in how they remind us of its imminence while being powerless to overcome it. So instead of being a people controlled by fear or suspicion, perhaps we can be a people who have the perspective of imminent Life. In the end that's what everyone craves, inside or outside the Church. Life, Peace, and Hope. We want some assurance that death isn't the end, for us or for those we love.

So let us be a Church that gives life to the weary, and let us remember those who have done the same before us.