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Good morning.

Tonight, many children around the country will be dressing up as ghosts, goblins and ghouls, and asking for sweets from their neighbours. This practice, although it feels like an ancient tradition, is actually a long way from the origins of ‘Hallows' Eve’: if shop windows are anything to go by, this day has become more of an obsession with ‘spooky things’, rather than with the holy. Traditionally, tonight’s eve of tomorrow’s Hallows, was a preparation for a great feast day in the Christian calendar: to celebrate tomorrow the ‘hallowed ones’, the saints who have lived this pilgrim walk that we are currently treading, and to be inspired by their witness in our own struggle of faith.

Faith or no faith, all of us agree that our days here come to an end at some point. For the Christian, consideration of death generally, and one’s own death specifically, is not a morbid, ‘scary’ thing to do. Rather, it is to look ahead to the very destination to which our life on earth has been leading.

This calendar year of 2025 is in the Catholic Church a ‘Jubilee Year’, a particular year of grace that is celebrated every twenty-five years. Before his death, Pope Francis gave it the theme, ‘pilgrims of hope’. Pilgrims because we have a destination in mind; hope, because that destination is the fulfilment of all that we’ve ever desired – to be in union forever with the God who made us. Where Halloween has become synonymous just with scaring people and emphasising the darkness, the saints are those who call us to live a life orientated towards the light, working on our faults, apologising where necessary, and seeking to grow in love for God and our neighbour.

Lord,
may we spend our time here being fascinated by your love,
and not by anything that would distract us from that.
May we each become to each other a glimpse of your abundant love.
Amen.