The stores are already full of it. Early August, and the shelves are stacked with Halloween merchandise. That alone is strange enough. What stopped me, though, was not the early arrival of pumpkins. It was the increasingly sinister imagery, the grotesque, the demonic, and the overt fascination with darkness. Something has shifted from the old autumnal playfulness into a more open invitation to what is ugly and menacing.
Sir Christopher Lee spent a lifetime portraying darkness on screen as Dracula, Saruman, and Lord Summerisle. When a rumor circulated that he kept a vast occult library, he answered it directly during a 2011 appearance at University College Dublin. He did not. He owned only a few books on the subject. Then he offered a sharper warning. He had met people who claimed to be Satanists and involved with black magic, yet he himself had never been involved. He told the audience, “I warn all of you: never, never, never. You will not only lose your mind, you’ll lose your soul.”¹ Lee understood the difference between portraying evil and inviting it, and that distinction remains useful.
We have always known better. The Church has always known better. Halloween is All Hallows Eve, the night before the Solemnity of All Saints. It belongs to the communion of saints, not to the enemies of God. St. Bernard of Clairvaux, preaching on this very feast, placed the Christian imagination where it belongs. “The saints have no need of honor from us,” he said. “Neither does our devotion add the slightest thing to what is theirs. Clearly, if we venerate their memory, it serves us, not them. But I tell you, when I think of them, I feel myself inflamed by a tremendous yearning.”² The feast exists to awaken that yearning for heaven, not a fascination with darkness.
Satan cannot create. He can only ape. Evil has no creative power of its own. It takes what God has made and distorts it, turning the good away from its proper end. The Church remembers death in the light of resurrection. The counterfeit presents death as spectacle. The Church gives us the saints. The counterfeit offers demons. The Church orders the supernatural toward God. The occult seeks spiritual power apart from Him. One leads to life. The other does not.
There is a better way to meet the season, and it is an old Catholic instinct: receive what God has actually given us. There is something wonderfully Benedictine about that. Bring out the pumpkins, the fall colors, the ceramics, the candles, the harvest foods, and the leaves. Enjoy the beauty of autumn rather than decorating it with ugliness. Dress the children simply and keep the door open for them. Offer hospitality. If you are out that evening, or if children come to your door, give them chocolate and tape a holy card to it. Do it quietly and without apology. We do not surrender the evening. We do not fear it. We do not imitate its ugliness. We take the holy day back.
Sir Christopher Lee understood something worth remembering. A man who spent much of his career portraying darkness knew the difference between portraying evil and dabbling in it. Christians should know the difference too. Halloween belongs beside All Saints because that is where the Church placed it. Death does not have the last word. The saints do. So bring out the pumpkins, give out the chocolate, add a holy card, and take back the holy day.
Notes
- Sir Christopher Lee, remarks at University College Dublin, 8 November 2011. The recording is available on the official UCD YouTube channel under the title “You’ll not only lose your mind, but you’ll lose your soul | Christopher Lee on the occult.”
- St. Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermo 2 for the Solemnity of All Saints, in Opera omnia, Editio Cisterciensis 5 (Rome, 1968), 364–368. The text is also appointed for the Office of Readings on the Solemnity of All Saints in the Liturgy of the Hours.