Halloween

I've got mixed feelings about this holiday. I no longer belong to the conservative church I grew up in, which taught that this holiday is evil and should not be celebrated by Christians... but I'm still a bit uneasy with the whole thing, because they do have a point. This IS a holiday about darkness, about fear, about evil and death. It DOES have its roots in pagan rituals of human sacrifice, in peasant superstitions about how to ward off goblins and witches, in people so terrified of the devil that they hoped to keep him from hurting them by offering other victims in their place.

And yet... that's the point, isn't it? Just as the pagan symbols of flaming trees and Astarte's eggs are important to Christmas and Easter, the symbols of evil and death are important to All Hallow's Eve. Before we truly understand the importance of Light, we must understand what it is to be in darkness.

What do the symbols really mean? In the days when people believed that ghosts, witches, goblins, werewolves, vampires, devils, were not only real but also walking the earth devouring people, the Church saw an opportunity to show that darkness is always overcome by Light.

Dress up once a year as all the things that you most fear, said the Church. Be an undead monster, be a demon, be Death itself, on the first day of winter, the season of death. Have your children make a game of it, and go from house to house demanding treats as the druids once went demanding victims, or as brigands went demanding money. Put out the Jack o' lanterns that used to mean the druids had taken a victim from the house. Fully experience all that is horrifying about life and death. Remember your fear of the dark, your fear of death and Hell, your fear of the things you and your fellow men are capable of doing to each other, your fear of all that is evil. Remember your fear of the worst evil that is in you, and your fear that it's stronger than the part of you that is good.

And then come to church for the feast of All Hallows. Come to where there is light, and warmth, and the company of family and friends. Come to the holy place. Come and remember those who have died, and are in Heaven, more alive now than we are. Come and remember that evil and death do not have the last word, but will disappear and be only a memory in the life everlasting.

Disney's Fantasia, of all things, captures what Halloween is really about. After "Night on Bald Mountain", in which the Reaper dances with the dead, the witches cackle, the mountain-sized Satan roars in power and revels in obscene glee - all cringe and melt away at the first touch of light, and with the dawn comes the clergy singing Ave Maria.

For darkness has no power except fear, and no power at all against Light.

Once a year, it's good to remember that.

Copyright John M. Munzer