The season of All Saints is one of my favourites. So many Christians get all hot under the collar about Halloween and it being a pagan festival and horribly commercialised, but I find myself drawing a comparison to Christmas. For those clergy (I used to be one!) who get all grouchy about Christmas lasting forever, flip the script and consider the fact that we have a whole month when we can talk about Jesus and people are willing to listen!!
 
So what happens if we flip the script on Halloween?
 
All Hallows Eve was simply the night before All Saints Day (1^st November). All Souls follows on 2^nd November. This is the time when Christians have traditionally believed that the veil between here and “hereafter” is particularly thin, and at times perhaps we may see and experience things which may feel unsettling. Much more importantly, it’s a time for remembering together, collectively, as a community, all those who have died and gone before us, and who are now with God.
 
The Church has a long tradition of the Saints – they are not only those whose lives provide examples and inspiration for us to follow, but also include all the thoroughly ordinary people like you and me. However as the dividing line between the extraordinary folk and the rest of us became sharper, the remembrances were divided into All Saints (for the famous ones like St Mary, St Paul, St Peter, St James etc.) and All Souls (for the rest of us – mum, dad, auntie Flo, and uncle Henry). We ask them to pray for us, and we in turn still pray for them. We may no longer see them, but we are still part of God’s family. We are still “members” of the one family, and thus this time of “re-membering” together was very much a community thing.
 
Humans also have a tendency to dress up in the things that scare us most, in an attempt to control them and ward them off. So it’s not hard to see where all the dressing up and scary bits come from too.
 
So instead of being a grump about Halloween and insisting on Services of Light, I’d much rather embrace it, and its ancient Christian traditional roots from the Medieval times and before, and use it as a time for us to remember, together, all those whom we have loved and who we can no longer see. A time to help each other in our grief, to celebrate their lives. Grief is one of the loneliest places, so surely this time of year can bring solace as well as sweets and pumpkins! And perhaps a time to get the children to think about and pray for grandparents (and pets) now gone, as they dress up again to go and roam the streets as little ghosts and witches.

Revd. Talisker

Photo by Vitalii Onyshchuk on Unsplash