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Halloween is growing in popularity in Australia, presumably thanks to the influence of American culture. It’s time to reclaim All Saints and All Souls Days as meaningful and fun celebrations for us, too, because Halloween makes way more sense if it is honoured as the evening before these powerful days. The below ideas is what I do with my little family to complete the experience of Halloween.
4 easy ideas for engaging young people with All Saints Day
- dress up as a Saint for the day, a morning tea or a dinner, with a full costume or at least with a prop!
- enjoy a Saint’s Symbols morning tea – where the food is linked to a saint somehow e.g. roses chocolates for St Rita, animal lollies for St Francis, lamingtons for St Mary MacKillop
- pray the Church’s Morning Prayer of the day, adding a litany to your chosen saints for your group e.g. St Mary Magdalene, Pray for us…
- make a special All Saints Book to collect pictures and facts about your chosen saints. We keep ours and build on it throughout the year.
4 easy ideas for All Souls Day
- make a special All Souls Book to collect and honour copies of photos and names of loved ones who have passed away. (When someone passes away, you then have a special ritual to do – add them to your All Souls book, light a candle and pray for them.)
- light 3 candles for your Morning Prayer – one for all the Saints, one for all our loved ones who have died and one for Jesus who loves us all from the beginning of time for eternity.
- Pray the Rosary or the modified version, bringing to mind our loved ones and the saints who are in heaven.
- have a talk with your young people about how we don’t fear death as Christians because of the Resurrection of Jesus.
Happy Halloween – AND All Saints and All Souls Days to you and yours! May you be filled with peace and comfort by God’s love.