Saintly Vision

Halloween is over, and I’m missing it. Not so much because of the candy (there’s still plenty of that to be found) or the costumes (dressing up isn’t the only way to be creative and playful). No, what I miss is the spirit of inclusiveness and kindness that abounds on Halloween. As Steve Garnass-Holmes says, “Halloween is a day when we get it right. Strangers come to us, beautiful, ugly, odd, or scary, and we accept them all without question, compliment them, treat them kindly, and give them good things. Why don’t we live like that?”

The day after Halloween, the Feast of All Saints, is set apart to honor the people who have lived like that. Not all of them have officially been designated saints; an example is Dorothy Day, who opened houses of hospitality to provide places where the beautiful, ugly, odd, and scary would be welcomed and treated kindly. She never wanted to be called a saint anyway, because she knew that we don’t think we can do the things the saints have done. Yet as many thousands of people who have staffed Catholic Worker houses can attest, one doesn’t have to be canonized to make a pot of soup, clean bathrooms, sort through donations of clothing, or listen to a homeless person’s story.

Where the saints excel is in developing the vision to see Christ in others and treat them kindly not just on Halloween but on every day of the year. Every time October 31 rolls around, we are given the collective opportunity to practice hospitality and generosity. There’s nothing that says we have to wait a whole year to do it again.