With all the marketing of Hallowe'en these days as a ghoulish festival of trick and treat, it's easy to forget that originally All Hallows Eve wasn't as important as the two days following it, All Hallows or All Saints' Day and All Souls Day: the first celebrating those who have made it in the Christian life, and the second remembering everyone else who hasn't yet made the grade. Neat! Except for one detail: no one knows, and no one can know, which is which.
I have known of a woman, in a town far from here, who made her daughter's life an absolute misery, breaking down her self-confidence, wrecking any relationships she might have had. But this bitterly twisted woman was a pillar of her local church, admired for all her good works; no one in her local congregation would have believed the face she showed at home.
I have known of another woman who sold her body for a living, who might be looked at askance if she dared venture into a church. Yet she chose to rescue a stray dog, which nobody wanted; loved it, cared for it and, when the money was low, would spend her cash on dog food rather than a meal for herself.
Who's the successful saint here, and who's the sinful soul? In the old days, Westerns made life simple for their viewers: the goody wore a white hat, the baddie a black hat; you knew when to cheer and when to boo. Now the thrillers I read describe both flawed heroes, tempted to cross the line into darkness and damaged villains, struggling painfully towards the light; and they are all the more believable.
But if that's so, why have two days at all? Why not just have one big celebration for saints in the making? The answer lies in history - as do so many church questions. Both All Saints and All Souls come from the Catholic tradition which believed in purgatory: the continuing purification after death of people who had died with unconfessed sins on their consciences, or sins for which they had not sufficiently atoned in life. This goes right back to the very early days of the church. When as Christians were persecuted by the Roman empire, some renounced their faith to avoid torture. In later, quieter days people asked whether such traitors should ever be allowed back into the church. Some said no: their sin had been too great. In the end, the majority decided that, while it was fair to exclude for a while those who had betrayed the faith, they should eventually be allowed back into Christian fellowship. But some died while still excluded; so theologians decided that, to be fair, that penalty - the time of purgatory - must still be worked out after death. We find a similar idea in Elgar's Dream of Gerontius, where Gerontius, face to face with God after death, realises his own imperfection and asks to be made fit for heaven, whatever and however long it takes.
But in the URC we don't hold with anything Catholic like purgatory, do we? Certainly the idea has no basis in the Bible, which is much less specific about what happens after death than we might wish. Yet the idea of God's mercy reaching out even beyond the grave, of our human imperfections finally - however painfully - being removed, does appeal to me. And we, sinful saints and struggling souls, can certainly take courage from the fact that nothing, not even those destructive tendencies of which we are most ashamed, can finally separate us from God's love.