Living Catholic with Father Don Wolf

Saints, Halloween, and the Joy of Mocking Evil | October 26, 2025

• Archdiocese of Oklahoma City

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In this episode, Monsignor Wolf pushes past the noise around Halloween and returns to its heart: All Hallows’ Eve as preparation for All Saints. He explores the communion of saints, how their lives shape ours, and how holiness takes root in real times and places.

• reclaiming Halloween as the vigil of All Saints
• communion with the saints as living friendship
• Stephen’s witness and Paul’s awakening in Acts
• saints formed by history, office and duty
• Miguel Pro, Thomas More and Oscar Romero as concrete models
• one Church across parishes, dioceses and centuries
• Rome’s stones as a sign of living continuity
• the saints’ intercession and patronage today
• becoming holy in our own time, not theirs

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Father Don Wolf is a priest of the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City. Living Catholic also broadcasts on Oklahoma Catholic Radio several times per week, with new episodes airing every Sunday.

SPEAKER_00:

This is Living Catholic with Father Don Wolf. This show deals with living the Catholic faith in our time, discovering God's presence in our lives, and finding hope in his word. And now your host, Father Don Wolf.

SPEAKER_01:

Welcome, welcome, home to Living Catholic. This is Monsignor Don Wolf, pastor of Sacred Heart Parish and rector of the shrine of Blessed Stanley Rother. It's late October, and we stand on the cusp of Halloween. This year is like every other, we're surrounded on all fronts by the warnings about the unique awfulness of celebrating the dark and chaotic on this secular feast day. What once was the time to remember a cornerstone element of Catholic teaching has turned into a vituperative contest of accusation and counteraccusation about what is acceptable and what's not in good and decent families. It's all too much. This time of the year ought to be about something more. Now, my position on celebrating Halloween is well known. I've written about it for almost 20 years. I have a post from 10 years ago on my Facebook page if you're interested in a deep look into the costumes and creepiness of the evening. Unsurprisingly, I'm generally in favor of a time in which we mock the forces of evil and pretend our way into farce. There's nothing more powerfully disruptive to the forces of this world than laughter, especially when the object of our japery is all of the serious anxiety about deviltry. But read the post if you want to find out more. Or you can go to our archives here on Catholic Radio, look up Living Catholic, and go to the late October posts each year and find my programs about Halloween. I have a whole series of them. They're free. Go listen. That's Oklahoma Catholic Radio. Click the Listen Online tab, and then go to the Archived Programming tab. Click on Living Catholic for old programs. What's important for today is to explore the basic fact left out of all of the discussions of Halloween, no matter who's having them or what their opinions are. Astoundingly, this is the case even among those who want to point our attention to the most important aspect of the day. It happens because we've become so captured by the contentions about costumes and trick-or-treat, we forget there's more to the day than the evening before. It would be funny if the outcome weren't so crooked. And yet, we've all abetted it as it has become this way. I think our responsibility is to shift course and steer back to its original heading. This has the advantage of changing the conversation, which has become dull and silly, as well as raising our eyes to what our ancestors had in mind, which is no small thing. It has the additional advantage of being interesting and holy, and that's not too bad for a holiday everybody seems to want to forget about. Note the focus of our energy is captured in the meaning of the words. Halloween is the en of all hallows. Hallow is an obsolete word for saint. Een is an obsolete contraction of the evening or eve. Thus we get, through the delightful elusions of oral usage and bad spelling, halows even, that is, that became hallows een, and then our familiar Halloween. It's the evening before All Saints Day. The words still make sense. They're simply usages from the old days. The Charles William novel, published in the 1940s, makes use of the words in a way the readers understood, even though it was old-fashioned even at that time. The novel was entitled All Hollows Eve, and is a stunningly good read, especially as you begin the opening paragraph. You should check it out sometime. In all of the hullabaloo, we've forgotten we're celebrating all those who have faithfully lived out the life of Christ and who have passed from this world to the fullness of God's kingdom. Not only are we remembering the promise that there are saints, but they are in communion with us and we with them. They have not disappeared from us in a cloud of heavenly fire to remain apart from our concerns. Instead, they're in communion with us. They communicate with us and we with them, all of which we celebrate and give thanks for. Or, as we learned in the second grade, the saints are our friends. They accompany us through our lives as our companions, our guides, and our models. The Holy Day is our chance to remember this central part of the faith. It's rather amazing to note this fact of our communion with the saints has been de-emphasized over the last generation. Its downplaying has resulted in the topsy-turvy world in which pious Catholics are warned of the special negative effects of evil insinuating itself into this day, so much so that we have to be extra careful about what we wear and what kind of parties we go to. All the while we're left ignorant of the powerful potential of the presence of the saints in our lives. If you followed the worried expressions from social media, you'd never know the evening of the 31st is the setup stage for one of the greatest of all Catholic dogmas. It's something like deciding to throw Christmas off the calendar because many people think only of Tinsel, Holly, and Jolly Old Elves. We might rage at the silliness of the season or the silliness of the version that the season has turned into, but to become so angry we forget to mention we're celebrating the birth of the Savior would be to commit the very same error in whose name we're working to correct. All Hollow's Eve is the evening before the great holy day of all saints. We shouldn't forget it. And by all saints, that's exactly what we mean. This is the day in which we remember all those whose lives of extraordinary holiness call to mind the graces God has poured into the world for our salvation. From the beginning, when the apostles quit their fishing and moved into the wide world to cast their nets for men, through the age of the building of the church, through the conquest of the empire, into the medieval realm, the modern world, and now postmodern society, the saints have moved us by the power of the gospel. Their examples have inspired all those who consider them. They are the living examples of what it means to believe. Faith isn't simply a collection of propositions from the scriptures. To believe is not only to become familiar with what's written on pages or collected in books, living the life of belief is the gateway to true life. The saints bring these truths to us by the content of their lives. We take one look at them and we know what Jesus offers us, and it is to make our lives different. In fact, our lives can become so different they're best described as a new life altogether. It has been this way from the beginning. It's even described just so in the New Testament, especially in the Acts of the Apostles. In the Acts, the first martyr, Stephen, is depicted as living out his faith in a bold and transformative way. He's chosen to be one of the Greek speaking men designated to serve the widows and orphans who depend on the charity of the church. His first work is to attend to the needs of those who can't live without the help of others. He grows in stature and conviction as the work of charity sets its roots in his life. Eventually, he's called upon to defend his faith, and his defense is so powerful and so impactful it results in his martyrdom. In every way, his life becomes an image and an imitation of the life and death of Jesus. The disciple become a model of the teaching of the Master. Most importantly, Stephen's death inspires others. When they see him, when they see the nobility of his life and the powerful example of his death, they're moved to understand what power there is in Christ's own example. Seeing Stephen, they get an image of Christ among them. The death of Stephen moved the young man, Saul, Paul, who was present when Stephen was martyred. His example haunted the soul of Paul even as an old man. He could never forget what this martyr meant for him. Saints have the power to capture our imagination and enrich our understanding. Saints matter for us. Now there are several aspects important for us to focus on in our encounter with them. The first is counterintuitive, which is saints are men of their times. Each one is embedded in the circumstances and history of the time in which he lives. It's not an accident. We want to preserve their memories by way of the symbols and images of their lives and deaths. These help us to keep in mind how they lived and died. Most especially, it reminds us what their lives meant to all who witnessed them. Just look at the saints depicted in the apse of the chapel at the shrine of Blessed Stanley Rother. On the left hand side, we have three saints whose clothes help us to focus on the example of their faithfulness. There's Blessed Miguel Pro, a priest who chose to come back to his country and serve the people of Mexico City by celebrating Mass and providing the sacraments when these actions were outlawed by the government there. He was captured and executed, wearing in every man's suit and tie as his protective costume. Miguel Pro lived his faith committed to his people. So committed, in fact, he was willing to forego the formalities of priestly identity in order to be the priest his people needed. We remember him in his suit and tie because they are integral to his witness and history. Saints are those who live their faithfulness in the gritty choices and tough decisions facing them, not in a blinding light of glory floating above the earth. The second is Saint Thomas More. He's depicted wearing the chain of office. Moore was the Chancellor of England before he was demoted and then martyred for his opposition to the overreach of the government. His costume is a reminder that he was woven into the powers of the state that eventually took his life. Rather than standing apart from the complications of governing and the rough decisions attending them, he was an intimate element of those complications. His life of faithfulness was circumscribed by the religious questions of the day. In fact, his life was taken because of his answer to the religious questioning of the day. There's no way to separate the faithful participation of his saintly life from the wild gyrations of the king and crown of the day. His history is part of his sanctity. And the third is the image of St. Oscar Romero. He was the Archbishop of San Salvador, murdered at the altar of his chapel as he was saying Mass in 1980. The most common depiction of him, including as he is painted in the apse, is in the cassock of a bishop. This is a reminder of the circumstances of his martyrdom as the leader of the whole church in the country of El Salvador. His example was tied in every way to his leadership as the archbishop and principal shepherd of his community. Those in the government who opposed him and his preaching opposed him because of his position and office. In the murderous circumstances of his time, his words were his undoing, but not only because they were spoken from the pulpit of his authority, his cassock and his position, they cost him his life. But it's always so among the saints. They were, first of all, a part of the world in which their examples were etched. Their places and their times made them. How they lived and what they valued were all a part of the configuration of their holiness. We can't understand them without keeping this in mind. Not only that, the history of the saints give us a history of the life of the faith. Holiness runs through the church, the years of the church like sunrise and sunset, an integral part of every age and eon. No matter where we look or in what circumstance, we find those men and women whose holiness sets them apart and reminds us that the essence of faithful living is in the here and the now of life. There is a paradox, of course. Our holiness will be lived in our here and now. We look to the saints to remind us of the important elements of faithfulness and the challenges we face as we try to make the words of Jesus come alive. But we will embody our living in our today, not in their yesterday. We could put on the chain of authority that St. Thomas More wore, but no one would respect us because of it, because it means nothing to anyone today. A cassock and sash of the office of archbishop would garner no more attention on the streets of Oklahoma City than it would at a costume party. The Archbishop is not contesting for the imagination of the people of the state of Oklahoma, as was the case in El Salvador. The one wearing the cassock wouldn't raise an eyebrow, not even from the mayor. And a priest striving to remain anonymous in suit and tie wouldn't even be a curiosity, especially if he were stopped by the police and questioned about how often he said mass. We are the men and women of our times, not the men and women of other times. So our holiness will be ours, it won't be theirs. As we celebrate saints, they are not simply removed from us either. We don't believe that these men and women had left behind, have been left behind only had we don't believe that they have left behind only their example and nothing more. Our life in the Lord is so comprehensive and the work of God is so powerful, these men and women from every age are actively a part of our lives today. We pray with them, they pray with us. The communion of the church is comprehensive to the fullest extent. Think of it this way: when we are a part of a parish, all the men and women in that parish form a body of believers who support and pray for one another. Although we may not know each other by name, and we won't know everyone's circumstances, we will be united by the common faith we share by the gifts of God that we're entrusted with, and by the prayers and sacraments we celebrate together. When we pray for the sick, for example, this includes all of those of the parish who are anguishing about their health and seeking healing for their disabilities. It's the same in all of our prayers together. We are all one in the community of belief and the action of our faith. On the larger level of the diocese, this is also true. We are one church, although we're divided into different parishes. Our faith in God and our life in Christ remain one. We're all together in what we do and believe. This unity permeates throughout the entire church worldwide. This is why the experience of the Catholic Church as the church is so powerful and so important. When we see the glory of the Basilica of St. Peter's in Rome, or the quiet chapel at the parish of Cerro de Oro in Guatemala, or the tiny classroom where Mass is celebrated in the Punjab in India, we know we belong there. These places are ours because we are all the church together. The oneness of the church is real. It's also vital. We are to be one. In addition, there is no boundary between the deep faith and encompassing belief of the living and the completed faith and realized hope of the dead. We share with those who have passed away from us a communion of life and hope. Our parents may have gone for us, may have gone from us, for example, but their faith prompted our own. The people who taught us in first communion class may have died decades ago, but their willingness to give their time to us in order to bring us the body of Christ has made our lives different. We're the products of their faithfulness, and we share all together the gift of the church. We're not limited by years even. The faith of the saints of the first century is the gift we share with them here and now. The Church of the 6th century is the church of the 21st century. We and they are one. Their faithfulness is what helped to bring about our own. The saints of those years are part of the living bond we encounter each day. During my sabbatical in Rome in 2021, for example, I had a brush with this connection. One of our seminar leaders invited us to the church that he pastors in Rome. He brought us there one afternoon and showed us around the body of the church. It's a 12th century space, remodeled during the Baroque era in the 17th century. This updating didn't sweep away everything. He was proud to point us to the wall on which was the only surviving painting of the Church of St. Peter's before it was torn down in 1490, and the current basilica was started in 1506. That is to say, that church that he's a pastor of is an old building. After showing us the glories of the space there, he then opened the crypt. He led us downstairs and toward what would have been the basement of the house next door. And at our feet were the cobblestones of a Roman street, beside which were the areas and shops of shops and stores from the second century. In one of these outdoor shops, the first church was established. It grew into the Christian headquarters of the city. Along the street, down from the original building, was the area where in the fourth century the Bishop of Rome gathered his entire clergy in order to receive the emissaries from the Council of Nicaea. All of this history and drama had been enacted right there in that space. The Church of the Ages came alive for me there. The years dropped away, and the ancient church became the church of today. And it's this way with the saints. We are one with their holiness. They have made us who we are. Our lives are connected directly with theirs in a bond that's real and certain. Where they have stood, we stand. We are one church. And finally, the saints, they pray for us. Our connection to these men and women who have gone before us is much more powerful than simply the circumstances of history. They are alive to the fullness of God's presence and to the fulfillment of the promises of the kingdom of God. As saints, they see God face to face. As the hymn for all the saints has it, we feebly struggle while they in glory shine. What they know of the promise of God is so incomparably richer than us, it makes our journey to God's will and all of the challenges we face the smallest part of life in Christ. They have become the experts. Their example and status are what we all strive for. And not just by example, but by support. Since they're part of the church, they are our brothers and sisters. They desire that we join them, to be a part of what they have become, since they are at one with all God is. They help us by their friendship, by their accompaniment. This is the heart of the matter, especially for the feast of all saints. They are one with us, which is why we all have patron saints. And while we can laugh at the patron saints of, say, golfers or midwives or apple farmers, our communion with saints in what we do and how we live isn't far-fetched. To know a soldier in fact became a saint, or that an honored wife or a scholar or a seafarer have all achieved holiness aids us in imagining that we too might be able to respond with our yes to the Lord of life, even if we feel it to be feeble and confused. And we can turn to those whose lives were shaped by the same dynamics that shape ours. They became holy, we can become holy. Knowing they've entered through the doorway of their lives onto the life to come, we have a common hope that our circumstances and situations might conduce us to the fullness of Christ as well. When thinking of the communion of saints, I always think of the tapestry at the cathedral in Los Angeles. It lines the wall of the church on both sides with the figures of nearly 80 saints. They're portrayed looking toward the altar as if moving more and more closely toward the presence of Christ. The saints are from all ages and circumstances. St. Augustine of Hippo, North Africa, interspersed with Queen St. Bridget of Sweden, St. Augustine Zhao Rong of 19th century China, standing next to Saint Edith Stein of 20th century Prussia, and on and on. And interspersed with all these notable saints are the figures, for example, of a young pregnant woman holding a child, a group of engineers with hard hats unrolling a set of blueprints, and a group of boys in running shoes holding skateboards. The saints are all tuned to the fullness of Christ at the altar. They include all of the faithful whose recognize those recognized in their holiness and those not yet so recognized. It's a portrayal of the life of holiness we share together. As on the tapestry, we're all in this together. So let's celebrate what Halloween is for, to prepare for the feast of all saints. There is evil in the world, but the power of Christ has overcome it. For all of the sad and twisted history of our world, there's also the blessed example of those who have passed through the trials to achieve union with God. The eve of all hollows is our chance to remember where we come from and where we're going, as those who are called to be saints for our generation. We can't become the faithful of yesterday. We can only become the faithful of today. So, happy Halloween. Back in just a moment. I don't know if we wait as much or more than we used to. We seem to regard it as fate. Staring at our screen seems to be our due. Oh, sure, everything is mostly at speed. The greatest premium is on right now. We act as if having time were the great need, so that we feel all every moment allows. But still, in our time-saving devices, we pause to allow the tech to catch up. Then our wait time actually entices when we pour time into the machine's cup. As in all that is limited and scarce, we value what we invest in the most, so we never look at what is the barest and leaves in insubstantial, wispy ghosts. The longer we stare at the screen flashing, its operation filling life's long story, we fade into argument and bashing and are content with the garish and gory. So we should live, fill our days, and wait with all principle and passion. Our minutes and hours can push and make way for our eyes to see them and then dash in. That's I don't know if we wait. Living Catholic is a pretty company.

SPEAKER_00:

Living is it okay city hard.