Halloween is short for All Hallow’s Eve. It is the vigil of All Saints (All Hallows) Day. All Saints Day is a Holy Day of Obligation, and thus a major feast on the Catholic Church’s liturgical calendar.

 

Halloween (October 31st) is connected with All Saints Day (November 1st) and All Souls Day (November 2nd). Halloween is, therefore, the first day of Allhallowtide, the time of year when the living honors all the dead in Christ: all the saints in heaven as well as all the holy souls detained in purgatory on their way to heaven It is a beautiful celebration of the communion of saints!

 

Halloween begins the celebration of Catholic, and therefore Christian, holy days that remind the faithful of the reality of heaven and hell, the saints and the damned, demons and angels, and the holy souls suffering in purgatory.

 

It is true that Halloween has been badly corrupted and hypercommercialized just like Christmas and Easter, but, just as that should never stop Catholics from fully celebrating the great feasts of the Church the Catholic way, neither should it stop Catholics from enjoying Halloween as a celebration of the great feast of All Saints.

 

To avoid superstition and any negative influence of the occult, Halloween should not be honored or celebrated apart from Catholic truth (in the same way we should keep the birth of Christ at the center of Christmas, and the Resurrection of Christ at the center of Easter).