The Triduum No One Talks About: Allhallowtide

I think Martin Luther would’ve loved Halloween.

Yes, the man who (intentionally or not) sparked the Protestant Reformation—posted his 95 Theses on All Hallows’ Eve at All Saints’ Church in Wittenberg. I’m no Luther scholar, but methinks this might not have been coincidence. This was a man who likely understood that the eve of All Saints’ Day was sacred time, a threshold moment when the veil between heaven and earth grows thin.

And yet somehow, five centuries later, I watch my fundamentalist North American Evangelical siblings peer nervously out their windows as their neighbors erect giant Home Depot skeletons and house-sized inflatable pumpkins, convinced they’re witnessing Satan’s handiwork. They turn off their porch lights, lock their doors, and miss one of the most profoundly Christian celebrations of the year.

How shallow. How sad.

Here’s what they’re missing: Allhallowtide—the sacred Triduum of All Hallows’ Eve, All Saints’ Day, and All Souls’ Day—is woven into the very fabric of our catholic tradition. It’s when we remember that death has been defeated, that the communion of saints stretches across time and eternity, and that we’re never, ever alone.

I’ve written before about how Halloween, culturally speaking, might actually be more Christian than Christmas. Think about it: Christmas in North America has become the naughty-or-nice season, all about moral performance and exclusive gift-giving within our tiny circles.

But Halloween? Halloween turns us outward. We decorate our homes in mischievous joy. We welcome all children—not just our own—with open doors and generous hands. Property lines dissolve. Strangers become neighbors. The least of these become the center of attention.

And we mock death. We dress as zombies and skeletons and ghosts, and in doing so, we proclaim with our whole bodies what we believe in our souls: death has no power here. Christ has risen. The grave is empty. So we laugh at the reaper and dance with bones and let our children run wild through the darkening streets, bellies full of candy and hearts full of joy.

This is resurrection faith lived out loud.

But it’s more than that. I love this season because I love the transcendent. I love memento mori: the ancient practice of remembering our mortality, of holding a skull and knowing that we too will return to dust, and that this is not the end but a transformation. I love graveyards with their weathered stones and moss-covered angels. I love amber leaves spiraling down through soft autumn light. I love the lengthening shadows and the gathering darkness that makes every candle flame more precious.

I love thinking about the spirit world—not in some superstitious or fearful way, but in the way the church has always believed: that we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses. That our dearly departed still play a role in our lives in ways we can’t fully explain or measure with our five senses. That my grandmother’s prayers still echo in eternity. That the saints who’ve gone before us still cheer us on, still intercede, still love us from the other side of that thin veil.

If my life were fully trapped in the material world—if all that existed was what I could see and touch and quantify—how boring. How suffocating. How small.

But Allhallowtide reminds us that reality is bigger than we think. That the universe is more mysterious, more wonderful, more shot through with grace than our rational minds can comprehend. That we live in an enchanted world where the dead are not really dead, where love transcends the grave, where every October 31st we stand on holy ground and remember that heaven and earth are closer than we think.

My Evangelical siblings have been taught to fear this. They’ve been told that acknowledging the spirit world means trafficking with demons, that celebrating Halloween means opening doors to darkness. But they’ve got it exactly backward. We don’t celebrate Halloween in spite of being Christian. We celebrate it because we’re Christian. Because we believe in resurrection. Because we trust that Christ has trampled down death by death. Because we know that nothing—not even the grave—can separate us from the love of God.

This Allhallowtide season is about freedom—freedom from the fear of death, freedom from religious manipulation, freedom to laugh in the face of everything that tries to diminish us.

So this year, as we enter the Triduum that no one talks about, I invite you to light candles for the dead. To walk through graveyards and remember those who’ve gone before. To welcome trick-or-treaters with joy. To celebrate All Saints’ Day by remembering that we’re surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses. And to give thanks for a tradition rich enough to hold both skeletons and saints, both darkness and light, both death and resurrection.

This is our inheritance. Let’s not be afraid to claim it.

Happy Halloween.