Monday Spiritual Rumination: Saints and spooky things…

It’s Halloween..all hallow’s eve…the night before All Saints Day.

This night was right up there with Christmas Eve when I was a kid. Trick or Treating at night was fodder for the imagination—trees sprung to eerie life, ghosts and bats abounded, and witches flew past the moon.

The next day, we would don our patron saint costumes for a Catholic version of Trick or Treat. The day began with Mass, since All Saints Day was a holy day of obligation. After a rigorous academic workout, the treating began!

It was the following day that caused me consternation. November 2 is celebrated in Christianity as All Soul’s day. It was a somber day of remembering the dead and praying for their souls. No costumes, no candy, not much fun at all.

As an adult, I have come to love these three days as one movement of the celebration of and confrontation…