The so-called “spooky season” is well underway. The grocery stores are filled with huge bags of candy, houses along my commute are decorated with blow-up pumpkins and enormous spider webs, pumpkin spice is in everything (including the Oreo cookies), and novelty songs like “The Monster Mash” are playing on the radio. For children, of course, this is the high season. They get to dress up like their heroes and go door-to-door to get free candy handed to them. Some houses will enter into neighborhood legend as “the full-size candy bar house,” whereas there’s usually one house (typically the town dentist’s home) where trick-or-treaters are likely to get a toothbrush and toothpaste. An old college friend of mine for years has been handing out ramen cup-o-noodles to the children. At his house, it’s less “trick-or-treat” and more “beef or chicken?” In the secular world, the buildup to Halloween comes to a crashing halt on the night itself. But while the rest of the world will already be looking ahead to Thanksgiving, we Catholics know that Halloween is like an appetizer, a kind of foretaste of something even greater. Halloween is essentially the “Christmas Eve” of All Saints’ Day, one of the major feasts on the Church’s liturgical calendar, when we pray along with the millions of holy souls who have gone before us and are currently in heaven. November 1 is the day when we particularly honor those residents of heaven who don’t have their own day, as well as those saintly souls who haven’t been canonized. In the creed, we profess faith in “the Communion of Saints.” It is this communion that we recall particularly on the feast of All Saints. The holy people who handed the faith down to us are not dead and gone forever; they have been raised to new life in Christ and are interceding for us even now. In his Book of Revelation, St. John tells us that he witnessed the prayers of the saints being offered to God as incense (cf. 5:8), and that he saw the Christian martyrs alive underneath the altar of the Lamb of God (cf. 6:10). Incidentally, this is one reason why the altars in our churches contain relics of the saints, referring to John’s vision of the martyrs in heaven. The feast of All Saints is followed by another special celebration, the Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed, All Souls’ Day. On November 2, we particularly remember those who have died and yet await their purification before being admitted to heavenly glory. This purification takes place in purgatory, and our prayers help them in the process. On November 2, priests are allowed to say three requiem Masses, and we faithful are invited to pray for those who’ve gone before us. There is a special indulgence attached to prayers for the dead on All Souls’ Day, which will remit all temporal punishment for a soul in purgatory. Our prayers both help these souls and gain us new saintly intercessors in heaven – a classic win-win situation. In his three-part epic poem known as “The Divine Comedy,” Italian poet Dante Alighieri tells of a journey he made throughout the course of three days traveling through hell, purgatory, and heaven. His often gruesome images of hell continue to fascinate readers, like a car crash that draws the attention of rubbernecking passersby. But when I read the second part of the poem, “Purgatorio,” I was struck by Dante’s beautiful idea that even as the souls in purgatory are suffering, they retain hope because they know that they are on their way to heaven. Dante depicts the souls in purgatory as singing psalms together, choosing verses that reflect on the pilgrim’s journey, both that historically taken by Israel toward the promised land and taken by each of us toward heaven. In November, which is dedicated to the holy souls in purgatory, let us remember to pray for our beloved dead. They need our prayers, and while it costs us nothing to offer them, it gains for us saintly friends in heaven. We would also do well to reflect on our own walk with Christ and to avail ourselves of the sacraments, especially confession and the holy Eucharist. Confession puts us back on the straight path, and the Eucharist sustains us along the journey. And this is far better than anything we get from a pumpkin-spiced cookie or a cup of ramen noodles. The post A Treat for Holy Souls appeared first on Today's Catholic.