Tonight the porch lights will be on all over the neighborhood. Kids in costumes, candy, a little harmless noise after dark. I’m not going to turn this into a lecture about a holiday. There’s nothing wrong with any of that.

But there’s something true sitting underneath all the costumes and the pretend. Scripture has never pretended the dark isn’t real. The light shines in the darkness, John writes, and the darkness has not overcome it. Not will not. Has not. It already happened.

I used to think protecting my soul meant staying alert for something coming at me, the way you’d watch a dark street for trouble. Lately I think it’s simpler than that. It means staying close to the light that already won, the way a child on that same dark street stays close to a parent’s hand, not because danger is coming, but because that’s just where safety actually is.

So tonight, before the porch light goes out and the candy’s gone, maybe just this. A sign of the cross at the door. A quiet word of thanks that whatever darkness looks like in your own life this year, it has not overcome anything.

Today’s Bible Study

John’s first letter says the same thing even more plainly. God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all. Not more light than darkness. No darkness in him, period. That changes the question. It was never really about how strong the dark is. It’s about where we’re standing. A soul kept close to that light isn’t the one that never notices anything unsettling. It’s the one that knows exactly where it’s standing when it does.

Recommended Reading

If you want a short prayer for tonight, the Church has had one for exactly this a long time. The Prayer to St. Michael the Archangel, listed on our own Resources page under Protection, has been prayed by Catholics for generations asking for protection against evil. It takes less than a minute, and it’s a good one to say with your kids before bed.