The Sight of Hell

As October rolls around each year and the exuberance of Halloween celebrations reach fever pitch, the Catholic might be reminded that All Hallow's Eve-a preparation for All Saints Day-is a good time to call to mind the four last things; that is: death, judgement, heaven...and hell. Children especially need to be encouraged to look past the costumes, decorations and candy, toward the sober remembrance that the ghosts and ghouls we treat in such a lighthearted manner today are in fact representations of the souls of the departed who have not reached heaven. And while there are those who would argue that vivid descriptions of hell are unsuitable for children, such arguments are rarely raised when our culture's current fascination with tales of the occult brings such tales to consistently younger and younger audiences. If children can visit "haunted houses" and be told hair-raisingly frightening stories once a year, in the name of a cultural holiday that stands in many ways opposed to the virtues of Christianity, then surely they can be read the sort of "scary story" that just may save their souls from sharing the fate of those ghosts and ghouls.