Berwick Thought for the Week: A three-day festival

Pope Francis, the 86-year old Pontiff has cancelled his planned audiences because he is suffering from 'mild flu.'

Tuesday night was Halloween, the feast of All Saints was celebrated on Wednesday and today is the feast of All Souls.

Sadly, few today realise Halloween and All Saints day are intimately connected, Halloween being the abbreviation of All Hallows Eve.

So Halloween-cum-All Saints is a single celebration, not of the dead but of the living – those who lived the life of Christ to the full, who shine out as heroes of the faith.

Dead they may now be in the earthly sense but, as St Paul would say, ‘alive to Christ’. Their new life, their resurrection life, is far more significant than their graves.

That leaves All Souls Day, the proper day for celebrating the dead – the souls of the faithful departed. And its fitting that the lesser known faithful should be remembered at almost the same time as the saints.

There is nothing macabre or ghoulish about this celebration, sombre, yes but filled with hope and peace. Many light lamps on the graves of their loved ones.

Whilst Halloween parties and so on are fun for the kids, there always seems to me a dark side behind it, speaking both of the fear of death that haunts most people today – and also the fear of evil powers.

Fascination with the dark side needs to be resisted. The destination of all this is, unfortunately, despair. God created us for light, and life and hope.

This three-day festival, filled with light, is a constant reminder of the ‘great cloud of witnesses’ that have gone before us, but are still close to us.