This Halloween was a quiet one for us. For the first time in 15 years, we did not take the girls trick or treating. They both went with friends for the night, and we answered the door to hand out candy. In some neighborhoods, the latter is a marathon event. I know our parishioners in Harrison Point and The Commons store up candy like squirrels preparing for winter in order to feed the hordes of revelers. We don’t have that problem. This was a record year with maybe twenty kids in costume. That’s it. They just don’t come all the way down the end of the neighborhood, I guess. Or they’re all in Harrison Point and The Commons!

On the other hand, our All Hallows Eve event the week before was a blowout. Mother Katie and her team put together a fun event that welcomed more than 200 to the front lawn, half of them children. I think there may have been a few religious conversions, too. Not because anyone was drawn to God, but because the “walking tacos” (bags of Fritos with taco meat and toppings poured on top) are just. that. good. It was great to see all the kids having so much fun.  We’re already dreaming about how we might add something like a Trunk or Treat to the mix next year.

Halloween was always a kid’s favorite when I was young. I still think it is for many kids. I remember the freedom we had on Halloween, to be out at night after dark, often without parents, was about as good as it got. We used to collect candy in pillowcases because the plastic buckets couldn’t hold enough. I lived in a neighborhood that had crowds to rival the two neighborhoods listed above. I loved the guy who made toys out of wood and handed those out instead of candy. And of course, everyone loved the house with the full-size candy bars, not the “fun size” ones.  

Now that my kids are getting older and I don’t relive Halloween as much through them as I used to, I found myself thinking about who I would want to dress up as and why. Sure, I thought of being Professor Snape again, or some other character I love to read about or watch on screen, but I found myself thinking about All Saint’s, too. I’ve had more time to think about it this year because it’s a full week after Halloween, because of the calendar this year. All Saints is one of my favorite adult holidays. It’s not on par with Christmas and Easter (in that order), but I love the church’s reminder about the great cloud of witnesses and those who have gone before.  

There are so many heroes in the faith who don’t have comic books or movies (though some do now) or posters on the wall. Men and women whose steady faith changed the world in small and large ways. Many of them have changed my life because I knew them and interacted with them. Instead of getting treats and gifts from them, they still hand them out to me, almost like I am a perpetual child, with hands open ready to welcome another nugget as it falls in my invisible pillowcase. As I look at my life and those saints, I realize it’s been as big a haul as any night I spent ringing doorbells – bigger in fact.  

I thank God for the Saints in my life. I don’t wear costumes to mimic them, but I try to be like them, nonetheless. With God’s help I might be able to do a decent job of it.

Tom+

Almighty God, you have knit together your elect in one communion and fellowship in the mystical body of your Son Christ our Lord: Give us grace so to follow your blessed saints in all virtuous and godly living, that we may come to those ineffable joys that you have prepared for those who truly love you; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.