10/25/2025
🌒 The Veil, the Saints, and the Hidden Unity of Halloween
This time of year, the air itself feels different…doesn’t it?
Something softens. Something stirs.
We’re approaching Samhain, the ancient Celtic festival marking the end of the harvest and the beginning of the dark half of the year.
To the Celts, this was the night when the veil between worlds grew thin. When ancestors could draw close, the Earth turned inward to rest, and fire was used to guide and protect the living. Families left food on doorsteps to honor wandering spirits, and people wore masks to disguise themselves from mischievous souls passing through the night.
Centuries later, as Christianity spread through Celtic lands, those same rituals were woven into new ones.
All Saints’ Day (November 1) honored holy souls, and the evening before — All Hallows’ Eve — became a vigil of prayer, light, and remembrance.
Children went door to door, offering prayers for departed loved ones in exchange for “soul cakes”, the earliest form of trick-or-treating.
Over generations, the ancient and the sacred intertwined, Samhain’s bonfires and masks blending with All Hallows’ candles and prayers. The result became what we now call Halloween, a night born from both Pagan and Christian devotion, honoring life, death, and everything that moves between.
So the next time you see costumes, candles, and laughter under October’s moon…remember this:
Every person who has ever dressed up, carved a pumpkin, lit a candle, or gone trick-or-treating has been celebrating an interfaith holiday all along.
One night, shared by many paths, united by the same light that guides us all home.
