- Feb 5, 2002
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...nothing to celebrate on Halloween
There is a house down the street from us that becomes an object of annual interest to my children as the days grow short and the nights cold. When we go for evening walks, they pause before it with wide eyes. Skeletons carrying coffins march across the lawn. A spectral bride’s veil stirs in the breeze. Grinning zombies lurk in the bushes, prisoners gnash their teeth in crow cages, and monstrous spiders crawl up the porch rails. Tombstones, jack-o-lanterns, and skulls complete the macabre yet playful neighborhood spectacle that my kids behold in wonder every October.
As we took it in this year, remarking on a couple of new cadaverous additions, my son scratched his scruffy 10-year-old head and said, “Dad, what does Halloween celebrate?”
The further our culture falls away from the celebration of holy days, the more it seems to pour itself into the relentless industry of holidays. Halloween is one of those barometers of godlessness, and it comes earlier and earlier every year. Though the first in a trifecta of holy days—All Hallows E’en, All Saints’ Day, and All Souls’ Day—Halloween is no longer generally regarded as a vigil for the faithful departed. But with the loud prevalence of Halloween as a commercialized, over-the-top fright-fest, and its concentration on the attention of children, Catholic parents should have something to say to their kids about this strange, ghoulish festival—and something that isn’t simply dismissive.
Liturgically speaking, Halloween has a very natural place in the Catholic perspective. After Pentecost, the liturgical calendar enters the period of the Church on Earth, moving toward the consummation of all things in Christ the King come November. Autumn brings the festival of All Hallows’ Eve and the feasts of All Saints and All Souls, and this time of harvest captures the drama of human salvation. Halloween in particular offers a fitting occasion for the beginning of the Church Militant’s liturgy of the faithful departed, representing man’s mortality and his longing for immortality.
Continued below.
What Do You Tell Your Kids About Halloween?
There is a house down the street from us that becomes an object of annual interest to my children as the days grow short and the nights cold. When we go for evening walks, they pause before it with wide eyes. Skeletons carrying coffins march across the lawn. A spectral bride’s veil stirs in the breeze. Grinning zombies lurk in the bushes, prisoners gnash their teeth in crow cages, and monstrous spiders crawl up the porch rails. Tombstones, jack-o-lanterns, and skulls complete the macabre yet playful neighborhood spectacle that my kids behold in wonder every October.
As we took it in this year, remarking on a couple of new cadaverous additions, my son scratched his scruffy 10-year-old head and said, “Dad, what does Halloween celebrate?”
The further our culture falls away from the celebration of holy days, the more it seems to pour itself into the relentless industry of holidays. Halloween is one of those barometers of godlessness, and it comes earlier and earlier every year. Though the first in a trifecta of holy days—All Hallows E’en, All Saints’ Day, and All Souls’ Day—Halloween is no longer generally regarded as a vigil for the faithful departed. But with the loud prevalence of Halloween as a commercialized, over-the-top fright-fest, and its concentration on the attention of children, Catholic parents should have something to say to their kids about this strange, ghoulish festival—and something that isn’t simply dismissive.
Liturgically speaking, Halloween has a very natural place in the Catholic perspective. After Pentecost, the liturgical calendar enters the period of the Church on Earth, moving toward the consummation of all things in Christ the King come November. Autumn brings the festival of All Hallows’ Eve and the feasts of All Saints and All Souls, and this time of harvest captures the drama of human salvation. Halloween in particular offers a fitting occasion for the beginning of the Church Militant’s liturgy of the faithful departed, representing man’s mortality and his longing for immortality.
Continued below.
What Do You Tell Your Kids About Halloween?
