Sir Michael Caine, Anton Du Beke and Pete Waterman

From Father Brian D’Arcy, a Catholic Passionist priest:

We can’t deny it now. The clocks have changed and autumn is about to collapse into winter, with its long dark nights punctuated by those deceptive bursts of daylight. No wonder we need Halloween to encourage us to eat drink and be scary.

Time passes; clocks go back and forward but clocks keep ticking.

An African child, who hadn’t yet succumbed to the foolish rush of life, stopped me in my tracks years ago as I was hopelessly explaining to him why clocks go back in autumn.

“Tell me sir, how does cutting a metre off the top of the blanket and sowing it to the bottom of it, make the blanket longer?” he asked. There was no answer to that.

The weather has been beautiful where I live. The days were sunny and crisp – perfect for crunching through the layers of multi-coloured leaves. Anyone who thinks fallen leaves are dead has never taken the time to marvel how they dance on a windy day.

Even the nights last week were brightened by the white, mesmerising light of the harvest moon.

I don’t think I’ve ever told you the parable of the two characters who partied all night at Halloween. They were staggering home in that precious time between the rising of the sun and the waning of the moon.

They looked up at the dawn sky. “Is that the moon or the sun up there?” one asked.

“It’s the moon of course.”

“Well I think it’s the sun,” the other insisted.

 Sun, moon, sun, moon, they argued until they met a fellow reveller on the road.

“Settle this argument for us,” they demanded. “Is that the sun or the moon in the sky?”

“I don’t know – I’m not from round here at all,” was the instant answer of a wise man who had come to cherish any light that lifts the darkness.

 He’d unravelled the mystery. The sun and moon chase each other eternally, just as autumn and winter are doing now. For one to shine brightly the other has to selflessly slip into the shadows.

If we’re wise we too can learn from nature. “There is a season for everything.” (Eccles 3:1)

Just enjoy it as it happens.