As Halloween approaches I feel it important to remind parents and children that the feast of Halloween was once the vigil feast of All Saints' Day, which is celebrated on November 1. It was the beginning of a day in which we rejoice in the work of God seen in his saints.
Sadly, it has become heavily commercialised. Parents should be aware of this and try to direct the meaning of the feast towards wholesomeness and beauty rather than terror, fear and death. Wearing skeleton suits, dressing up as vampires, witches or goblins or slapping on fake blood is not far removed from communing with the Devil.
As we approach Halloween this year let us try to provide a wholesome, non-pagan alternative celebration, which thus rejects the pagan holiday.
Parents can, for example, dress up their children as popular saints instead of witches and devils. They can carve smiling faces, rather than menacing faces, into pumpkins. They can light a candle or display publicly another kind of light alongside, perhaps, an image of Christ. These things can be a powerful means of showing people that we have hope in someone other than ourselves.