In Defense of Linus (and His Pumpkin)
Every October, a small boy with a blanket sits in a pumpkin patch all night, waiting for the Great Pumpkin to rise from the most sincere patch in the land. He misses the costumes, the candy AND the Halloween Party! He is first mocked, then shamed and ultimately abandoned. He never recants. In fact, he maintains his charity by promising that “If the Great Pumpkin comes, he’ll still put in a good word.” Mind you, this is the same boy who stood alone on a stage and read St. Luke's Gospel to a room full of children who wanted an aluminum Christmas tree. Hand Linus a Baronius missal and he would be the best altar boy in the diocese.
Linus has exactly the right instincts: keep vigil, be sincere, wait in hope through the long night and maintain faith. He is simply a few centuries ahead of his catechesis. The Church takes that same instinct and gives it three days in which heaven, purgatory and earth all show up at once: the Church Militant keeping vigil, honoring the Church Triumphant, and running to rescue the Church Suffering.
So bring your blanket, Linus. Here is what Halloween is actually all about.
All Hallows' Eve: Sorry, It Was Never Satan's Birthday
A "hallow" is a saint; "even" is the evening before. Hallowe'en is simply the Vigil of All Saints, and the name is about as Catholic as a rosary. Every October someone insists it is "really" Samhain in a Christian mask. It is not. The Church never moved a feast to baptize a Druid bonfire; November 1 came from Rome, as we will see, and the vigil came with it. The trick-or-treaters showed up later: medieval "soulers" went door to door for soul cakes, promising to pray for the household's dead in return. Your children are collecting fees for prayers they never intend to say. Fix that this year.
Until 1955 the vigil was a day of fast and abstinence; Pius XII's reform of the rubrics suppressed it.¹ Keep it privately anyway. Fish sticks first, Snickers second.
All Saints: The Pagans Lost Their Temple
If you want a pagan connection, here is the real one, and it ends badly for the pagans. Around 609, Pope St. Boniface IV rededicated Rome's Pantheon, the temple of "all the gods," to the Blessed Virgin and all the martyrs.² That was not borrowing from paganism; it was foreclosure. Jupiter did not even get to keep the gift shop. Pope Gregory III later dedicated a chapel in St. Peter's to all the saints on November 1, and around 835 Gregory IV extended that feast to the whole Western Church.³ No Druids were consulted.
All Saints honors the Church Triumphant, every soul in heaven, canonized or not: the "great multitude which no man could number" (Rev. 7:9), our "cloud of witnesses" (Heb. 12:1).⁴ Your great-grandmother with the worn-out rosary may well be among them. In the traditional calendar it is a first-class feast, and this year it outranks Sunday, November 1. Go to Mass. It’ll be the best party of the week.
All Souls: Black Vestments and a Rescue Mission
The Church has always prayed for her dead. Judas Maccabeus offered sacrifice for fallen soldiers "that they might be delivered from their sin" (2 Macc. 12:45),⁵ and Trent taught that the souls in purgatory are helped by the suffrages of the faithful, above all by the Mass.⁶ The fixed day came from St. Odilo of Cluny, who around 998 ordered his monasteries to remember all the faithful departed on November 2. Rome eventually made it universal, and in 1915, amid the slaughter of the Great War, Benedict XV let every priest offer three Masses that day.⁷
The traditional Requiem is not subtle: black vestments, the Dies Irae, no Alleluia, and nobody announcing that Uncle Frank, who last went to confession during the Carter administration, is now golfing with Jesus. The rite assumes he may need help, and then it gives it. This year November 2 is a Monday. Find a Requiem and go. The souls in purgatory cannot help themselves. They can only be helped. By you.
Your Homework: Emptying Purgatory, November 1–8
An indulgence is the remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt is already forgiven.⁸ A plenary indulgence remits all of it. Applied to a soul in purgatory, it is the closest thing you will ever do to opening a prison door. The Church puts these keys in the hands of the laity every November.
The two November grants, applicable only to the souls in purgatory:⁹
The cemetery visit, November 1–8. Each day, devoutly visit a cemetery and pray for the dead, even if only mentally. One plenary indulgence per day, for eight days.
The church visit on All Souls Day. On November 2, devoutly visit a church or oratory and pray one Our Father and the Creed. With the bishop's consent, this may be moved to the Sunday before or after, or to All Saints.
The usual conditions, which make the indulgence plenary rather than partial:
Sacramental confession, within roughly twenty days before or after. One good confession covers the whole octave.
Holy Communion for each plenary indulgence. Eight indulgences means eight Communions. Daily Mass this week is the plan.
Prayer for the intentions of the Holy Father, each time. One Our Father and one Hail Mary suffice.
Detachment from all sin, even venial. This is the hard one. If it is lacking, the indulgence becomes partial. Nothing is wasted; simply aim higher tomorrow.
Only one plenary indulgence may be gained per day. Before 1968, the All Souls indulgence was toties quoties: gainable with every church visit, so pious families wore a groove in the parish door, in and out all day like Catholic revolving doors. The rule is stricter now, but the window is generous. Eight days, eight souls.
A practical plan for the family: confession on Saturday, October 31; Mass and a cemetery stop every day through November 8; and a list of names on the fridge. Bring the children. Let them see where Grandpa is buried and tell them why they are praying for him. That is better catechesis than anything printed on a candy wrapper.
So Here's the Point, Charlie Brown
Linus was never wrong to sit up all night in that pumpkin patch. He is a vigil-keeper in a world that cannot sit still through a commercial break. He just needs a bigger patch, and the Church has one. It is called a cemetery, and the harvest there is souls.
So carve the pumpkin; this is a pro-pumpkin publication after all. Hand out full-size candy bars, because purgatory is real and stinginess is noted. Let the kids dress as St. George, or as the dragon if they insist on losing. Then go to Mass on the 1st, hear a Requiem on the 2nd, walk the cemetery for the eight days and gain those indulgences. Somebody you loved is waiting in that patch, too. Don't abandon them like Linus all night.
And one day, God willing, someone will bring their blanket and their faith and do the same for you.
Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis.
Endnotes
Sacred Congregation of Rites, General Decree Cum nostra hac aetate (Mar. 23, 1955), 47 Acta Apostolicae Sedis 218 (1955).
Liber Pontificalis, Life of Boniface IV; Bede, Ecclesiastical History of the English People bk. II, ch. 4.
Frederick G. Holweck, All Saints' Day, in 1 The Catholic Encyclopedia (Robert Appleton Co. 1907).
Scripture quotations are from the Ignatius Bible (RSV-2CE) (Ignatius Press 2d ed. 2006).
2 Maccabees 12:45 (RSV-2CE) (numbered 12:46 in the Douay-Rheims).
Council of Trent, Session XXV, Decree Concerning Purgatory (Dec. 3, 1563); see also Catechism of the Catholic Church ¶¶ 1030–32 (2d ed. 1997).
Benedict XV, Apostolic Constitution Incruentum Altaris Sacrificium (Aug. 10, 1915), 7 Acta Apostolicae Sedis 401 (1915).
1983 Code c.992; Catechism of the Catholic Church ¶ 1471 (2d ed. 1997).
Apostolic Penitentiary, Enchiridion Indulgentiarum grant 29, § 1 & norms 17–20 (4th ed. 1999).
