Death is a Doorway

Thought for the Week: Redeeming Halloween

Few people realize that the ancient church’s All Hallows Eve (“Hallow-e’en”) and All Saints Day were intentionally focused on both harvest and death. Not in mindless emulation of pagan traditions, but for healthy, meaningful reasons.

Harvest festivals celebrated the ingathering of fruits and grains. And yet, at the same time, all around the town were the now-dead crops that produced them. Sad? No. Because this meant they’d accomplished their purpose. They’d borne their fruits, and were now at rest in the earth. It was a healthy perspective, one of death as fulfillment, not fear. Death as a time of rest and the promise of a coming resurrection in the spring.

People also completed their work, died, and rested in the earth. All Hallows Eve was a reminder that they, too, would be resurrected. Therefore, on All Saints Day, those who’d accomplished their purpose in life were honored. And for those whose souls were less secure, the predecessor to trick-or-treating emerged:

On All Hallows Eve, the poor, especially children, would knock on doors, offering to pray for the souls of the family’s dead, and would be rewarded with sweet, fruit-filled little “soul cakes.” One spiritual-minded baker even put holes in her soul cakes, making them into circles representing eternity (and in the process inventing doughnuts!).

So let us refuse to surrender Halloween to that dark, unhealthy fear of death as something evil, something to be feared. Let us acknowledge death as a grace, as a rest, a passage. For without death, there is no completion of this life’s purpose, no resurrection to the life to come. But for those whose souls are truly at rest, death is not an end…

It’s a doorway.