Monday of the Thirty-first Week in Ordinary Time
Last Halloween I saw Abraham Lincoln and the Bride of Frankenstein riding scooters around UD. The Catwoman rang me up at Krogers while Fidel Castro bagged groceries. At dusk, haunting for tricks or treats in our neighborhood were Casper the Friendly Ghost and Mr. Potato Head. Three girls came to our door all decked out as the City of New Orleans.
I think that Jesus would have laughed at Halloween.
October 31 yearly announces the dimming of the light and the quickening of the dark. Winter is on the horizon.
Tonight the barrier with the netherworld stretches thin and the souls of the dead roam free. Jack-o-lanterns are carved to scare off the things that go bump in the night. Bonfires set ablaze protect against all manner of fright.
Many of us love sweater weather, as the air grows crisp. Our focus is sharpened on the last things. Readings at mass grow more ominous between now and Advent. Nature gives up the ghost as majestic leaves silently slip away, insisting that death is a beautiful thing.
October 31 has been the festival of the harvesting that gives us life. But the gathering scythe is also a sign of death.
Still, I think Jesus would have laughed at Halloween. Remember the wild man among the tombs (Mark 5:1-21)? He resided with the spooky, the unknown, with everything we let loose on Halloween.
The ill-of-mind were deposited in cemeteries as “dead among the dead.” Jesus knew such places, restoring those tossed away wherever he went, those consigned to the shadows. It was in a graveyard that Jesus raised a dear friend and told him to take off his funeral clothes. With Jesus, shrouds are unnecessary.
What follows was written by Christian Scharen, pastor of Saint Lydia’s in Brooklyn, NY:
On Halloween we not only name our fears, but act them out. And they’re dispelled. We open the gates and let death roam free.
But we’re not afraid. Death has no power over us.
On Halloween, we play a trick on death.Jesus knew all about the thin places between this world and the next, all about graveyards.
In fact, I heard he stayed in one for three whole days.
But in the end, it had no power over him. He played a trick on death.
Jesus would have laughed at Halloween.
-Timothy J. Cronin