Shadows: Visible & Invisible

Shadows: Visible & Invisible available on Amazon

Just in time for Halloween, All Saints’ Day, and All Souls’ Day, the Catholic Teen Book authors will have you huddling under your blankets with their latest anthology. These seven Hallowtide stories for teens and adults have one theme: purgatory. And it is scarier than a one-way trip through a haunted house.

Strange noises in the loft of a church, a medieval mystery in a nunnery, and a young man doomed to walk through fiery heat in a cemetery all beg the intimidating question: what is beyond death? The follow-up question would be: will anyone care for me when I am gone?

As fun as it is to celebrate Halloween with costumes and candy, there is a very real need to pray for the dead. The beginning of understanding that strange state called “purgatory” is in the Bible, in Maccabees. Catholics believe that every person who dies with sin on their soul must undergo a cleansing, a time called purgatory where the soul must wait to enter Heaven. Souls in purgatory are assured of our Lord’s forgiveness, but nothing unclean can be in the presence of the beatific vision, so there is a time of waiting and heartache, separated from the Lord.

To ease our loved ones’ passage through purgatory, we can pray and fast for them. One of the most famous prayers for the dead is the Prayer of St. Gertrude the Great, a 13^th-century mystic.

Eternal Father, I offer Thee the Most Precious Blood of Thy Divine Son, Jesus, in union with the masses said throughout the world today, for all the holy souls in purgatory, for sinners everywhere, for sinners in the universal church, those in my own home and within my family. Amen.

Coming to grips with the idea of purgatory provides plenty of opportunity to create characters that must face the best and worst in their own natures. The CTB writers did not disappoint; the people in these stories face selfishness, grave robbing, and secrets. They also fast, pray, and show mercy to family and strangers alike. Holed up in a blizzard and almost trapped by a pack of T.rex or working outside in space to bring remembrances to the dead, these characters are unforgettable and offer plenty of teachable moments, interspersed with some much-needed humor.

The most terrifying part of this Hallowtide anthology is that purgatory will probably happen to all of us. For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and working on ourselves means that we must come face to face with our faults and overcome them through penance and mortification. Sin is as ugly as the Joker, and as predictable as Palpatine. These stories shed light on the visible and invisible world we inhabit, and provide plenty of food for thought.

And this is honestly scarier than your regular, run-of-the-mill ghosts, goblins, and boogeymen.