Just as New Year’s Eve is the evening before New Year’s Day, All Hallows’ Eve is the evening before All Hallows’ Day (or All Saints’ Day) when the Catholic Church, and others, commemorate their vast, and growing, array of Sainted persons. All Saints’ Day is a holy celebration of remembrance and thanks. Many tales exist of how All Hallows’ Eve went from being a time of sacred anticipation of the Feast Day of all Saints on the morrow, to being Hallowe’en, the current-day glorification of all that is dark and sinister and frightening. Witches and vampires, ghosts and tarantulas, tombstones, and more recently, zombies, rule this evening (it might be that those dear saints would turn over in their graves at the knowing). Hallowe’en has become a commercial ‘success’ with sales of all things related – and treats – let’s not forget the treats lest there be tricks!
It may have seeped through in the preceding paragraph that I am not a huge fan of this dark event. So, for the occasion, I’ve written a prayer, adapted from Philippians 4, for what is found that is celebration-worthy. PD
He is Light
May I be cheerful on Mondays as Sundays,
During winter’s long darkness as on summer’s sunny hour
May I ever dole out joy, this Jesus-in-me overflow
May relationships be opportunities to display the gentle you
May my days rotate in prayer through the week prompting worry-scurry
May all my asks, every last one, be salted, and sated, by gratitude
May Shalom be instilled in the very fibers of my being
Then, when I’m there in that place, my thoughts in their sweet spot,
The genuine, the real, the honorable, the admirable, the beautiful,
the respectful, the pure, the holy, the merciful, the kind
Will be the All I see
And there, in that place, bathed in the Light,
My thoughts will corral in praise. AMEN!
