This year it was the earliest ever. A month before Halloween, plastic-bag ghosts were hanging from a cedar tree and plump pumpkin lights were dangling across the front window at a home down the street. Within a week, lights, ghosts, tombstones and skeletons could be spotted on a half dozen more residences in my section of town. Within two, they were springing up on every street.
I’m not sure when “Halloween decorating inflation” really took off, but I do have a theory about why. One that makes sense to me as a Catholic.
First, though, I need to make it clear I have nothing against this holiday. I don’t trace its roots back to Druidic practices. Although, as an Irish-American, I assume some of my Celtic ancestors were Druids. I hope so. I hope they prayed and searched for God even before St. Patrick brought them the Gospel.
Yes, those ancient Celts had a festival in the fall. Was there a religion that didn’t have one in the fall and another in the spring? Or at the beginning of summer and the start of winter?
But when tykes dress up as a cartoon character or Disney favorite, I don’t think they’re tapping into Druidic mysticism. Or if they choose to be a cat or a witch, I have no fear that they are toying with Satanic forces. Both those concerns are new and relatively unfounded fears. As a Catholic kid who trick-or-treated before Vatican II, let me assure you that at that time there was no fooling with, not even a tip-of-the-hat toward, any belief that was not strictly Catholic.
If even Protestantism was suspect — and at that time it was — there was no way a Catholic child would be exposed to anything pagan or, far worse, devilish.
My siblings and I knew Halloween was All Hallows’ Eve. We knew that on October 31st we would go out and get candy. And, first thing next morning, we would be in church for All Saints’ Day. It was — and is — a holy day of obligation. So we had to be up for Mass, which didn’t necessarily please us. (But there was no school that day, which always pleased us.)
The candy holiday wasn’t dangling out there by itself. It was tied into the holy day. But that was then, and this is now. These days, it seems to me, the proliferation of Halloween decorations is symptomatic of a deeper need that the holiday alone can never satisfy. We humans — from Druids to Catholics — need traditions. We need rituals. We need symbols. We need feasts.
Each, ideally, reminds us of something that is bigger than we are. Reminds us that there is something bigger than we are. As Catholics, we know what — or, rather, Who — that is. It’s God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
And our Creator, knowing us so well since he is our maker, understands that traditions, rituals, symbols and feasts help us on our journey back home to Him. Small wonder then that they make up a significant, and very visible, part of the Church the Son began — the institution that, since the first Pentecost, has been guided by the Spirit. Small wonder all four are a part of every Mass.
Being outside the Church, being away from the Church, being unaware of the Church, doesn’t eliminate the need. It forces humans — as individuals and as a community or people — to establish those traditions, those rituals, those symbols, those feasts. And if folks can’t find them within a religion, then an individual or a community or people will begin their own. Establish a tradition and fill it with rituals. Sprinkle it with symbols and celebrate a feast.
That’s what the modern-day Halloween is for many folks. Not a harkening back to the Celts who worshipped in tree groves, or a sign of submission to fallen angels. It’s a salute to… To what? There’s the problem. There’s the concern. There’s the dilemma that lobs the ball back into our court. Why? Because those folks are searching for something more — and, perhaps, even unaware that they are searching — are looking for what we already have. They’re trying to discover what we already know.
And what we have, what we know, isn’t a secret. Or at least it isn’t supposed to be. We are commanded to share that information with them. Jesus told us to “go into all the world and proclaim the good news” (Mark 16:15). That “go” is where we get the English name for the Mass — from the final prayer, the final order. From the Latin “missio” meaning sent. The same root word gives us “missionary.”
We’re on (or are supposed to be on) a mission from God. No fooling. And that doesn’t necessarily mean preaching on street corners or knocking on doors, although it can. It does necessarily mean living a life that makes our beliefs obvious. Day by day. To family and friends. At work. In the neighborhood.
Certainly, there are some very devout and faith-filled Christians who just happen to like decorating their houses for this fall holiday. But, as someone who lives in a very unchurched corner of the country, I strongly suspect there are others whose basic human hunger for traditions, rituals, symbols and feasts is going unsatisfied.
Their hearts are restless because they do not know in Whom their hearts can find rest. And part of their misguided efforts might well be a reflection on our meager ones.
