Like many of you reading this, I remember Halloween nights of my childhood with ‘Trick or Treating’, songs, games, apples and monkey-nuts. It all seemed innocent fun. But things have changed. Today, celebrations of Halloween have taken a darker turn that ranges from exaggerated decorations and costumes in schools to clear evidence of the rise of the occult in our culture. Online, there is a virtual subculture known as WitchTok. Content with hashtag WitchTok now has a staggering 30 billion views, consisting mostly of young people teaching their followers how to perform various magic rituals. Last week, in the French city of Toulouse, the local archbishop consecrated the city to the Sacred Heart of Jesus in advance of a street performance featuring satanic imagery that took place there over the weekend.
Courageous
The courageous leadership of this archbishop warns us against the danger of complacency when it comes to the powers of darkness that Christ came to conquer. And although his victory is certain and complete, there are still remnants of this darkness in our world that the light of Christ needs to repel. This happens through us and through the Church. On the day we were baptised, we were entrusted with the light of Christ through our parents, taken from the paschal candle. This is the gift of God’s life within us that either dims or gets brighter. It is the light that doesn’t just repel the darkness but chases it too.
For us, this means that our Christian witness never remains the same. It’s like the love between two people that is seldom static but either gets stronger or weaker. So too with the divine life within us. It needs to be nourished and fed (with prayer and the Eucharist), healed (Confession, Anointing of the Sick) and shared (on mission). As Jesus reminds us, we are to be “light to the world”, bearing his life of truth, goodness and beauty to transform lives including our own. At times this light will need to be protected and defended; at other times we need to chase the darkness by challenging falsehoods, unjust laws, facing addictions and bringing love where there is none.
For those who think this language of battle is too dramatic, St Paul reminds us: “For it is not against human enemies that we have to struggle against but the principalities and the ruling forces who are masters of the darkness in this world, the spirits of evil in the heavens” (Eph. 6:11-12). It is the spiritual world where the real battle is for it is from there that all our words and actions arise.
Collapse
The collapse of Christianity in Ireland and in the West in recent decades is leaving a dangerous vacuum that is not being left vacant but being filled with other forms of pagan spiritualty, religion and worship. There is evidence that Ireland is ‘re-paganising’ or reverting to the worship of false gods like it did before we accepted the Christian faith back in the 5th Century.
Ireland has experimented with paganism and superstition before. Moving away from the light of Christ and into darkness is inevitably leading to a breakdown of civilisation, the family and chaos in society in general. It leads to confusion about what is true and false, what is right and wrong and a bleaker future for our youth who are longing for hope. The way things are going, far from it being the established order to rebel against, traditional Christian faith is becoming the last countercultural force that has the confidence and resolve to resist this slide into despair.
I conclude with recent words of Pope Francis who said: “Our secularised world is teeming with magicians, occultism, spiritism, astrologers and satanic sects. If we kick the devil out the door, he tries to return through the window. If we overcome him with faith, he seeks to return through superstition.” Let’s not be naïve about the presence and power of evil. May all forms of darkness, evil, deceit and worship of false gods be dispelled by the true light of Jesus Christ, risen from the dead for “Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness but have the light of life” (John 8:12).