This is the season of ghosts. Halloween has been co-opted as a secular holiday, poised to overtake Christmas in terms of commercial sales, and distorted in many cases into a grotesque and diabolical celebration of the macabre and ugly. While Christians are right to avoid the commercialist and occult side of the holiday, the uncanny side of the celebration is in fact Christian in origin. The Feast of All Saints and its eve, Halloween, along with All Souls’ Day make up a celebration of all the saints in Heaven and of all the departed souls who are being prepared for eternal glory. In this winding down of the year, the Church urges Christians to dwell on the passing of things and the life to come. In an age of appearance, materialism, and skepticism, reminders of the supernatural are all the more important.

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