For all the Saints
The Feast of All Saints holds a special place in the worship life of the church. As is stated in a liturgical book of observances, “All Saints’ Day is classed…as a Principal Feast, taking precedence of any day or observance. Among the seven so classified, All Saints’ Day alone may be observed on the following Sunday, in addition to its observance on its fixed date.” The aforementioned fixed date was November 1st, which you may note is the day after All Hallows Eve, now called Halloween. It is all connected. All this said, All Saints must be a pretty big deal, right?
The celebration of All Saints is a moment of proclaiming that Jesus’ victory over death at Easter is the same resurrection hope we proclaim for ourselves. We celebrate that in our baptism we are marked as Christ’s own once and for all. We celebrate that in Jesus, hope is complete and we are assured of new life.
There are several ways we will celebrate this promise on Sunday. First, we will baptize a new saint at the 10:30 service! Last year on All Saints, we also had a baptism as we started regularly worshiping in person for the first time since the pandemic began. This Sunday we will also be bringing back many of the things we have been missing such as acolytes, processions, and kneeling at the altar rail. We will take a moment to bless the new leaves for our endowment tree that have been given in memory of lost loved ones this year.
Finally, during the Eucharistic Prayer, we will name all from our community who have died these last two years. As one of the prayers says, “…bring us to that heavenly country where, with all your saints, we may enter the everlasting heritage of your sons and daughters; through Jesus Christ our Lord, the firstborn of all creation, the head of the Church, and the author of our salvation” (BCP 369). All of this is a proclamation that our baptismal hope is tied to the promise of God’s love.
I pray you will come and celebrate with us at 8, 10:30, or 3:00 this Sunday to proclaim hope and give thanks.
We love you and God loves you,
Josh Condon+