All Saints and All Souls

Fr. Tony’s Midweek Message

All Saints and All Souls

November 1, 2017

I had a parishioner tell me recently that since the death of her husband, she has heard his voice speaking to her, and seen him standing in the room near her, on more than one occasion.  Years ago, I may have reacted to such a tale with concern.  But I heard it now with some familiarity.  Others have told me similar stories.  And I myself have experienced like things:  my beloved mother-in-law coming to me in a dream months after her death and a late evening momentary glimpse in the darkened parish library of a congregant who had died of a terrible debilitating illness, now standing healthy and upright.   I know that impartial science explains such things in wholly natural terms and that they are not public proof of our state after death.  But they are common enough and felt deeply enough that they underscore for me the truth of Hamlet’s words “there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” 

This week is the Christian autumn Triduum (three day festival): All Hallows’ Eve (Oct. 31), All Saints’ Day (Nov. 1), and All Souls’ Day (Nov. 2).  It mirrors the Spring Triduum (Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter Sunday).  Where spring reminds us of life and new beginnings, the fall reminds of death and the endings that must precede new things.

Our commemorations of the departed, both the Saints and all the rest, remind us that we all—living, dead, and yet-to-come—are in this together, beloved creatures of our loving God.   We remember the examples of the saints and hope that they pray for us; we mourn the loss of the beloved ones we no longer see, and we pray for them.

We read our prayer list of the beloved departed here at Trinity, an All Souls' devotion, on All Saints’ Sunday.   That is because sometimes it is hard to distinguish between those whom we ask to pray for us, and those for whom we pray.    This devotion is so loved that the list in recent years has become unmanageably long.   So this year we will print all the names submitted, but read aloud only those who have died in the last six years.  The printed list of all names will be handed out to parishioners for their personal prayers and one copy will be placed in the small ambry in the altar for the year, so that each of our eucharistic celebrations may also serve as prayers for all these beloved departed.

The Prayer Book teaches, “we pray [for the dead] because we still hold them in our love, and because we trust that in God’s presence those who have chosen to serve him will grow in his love, until they see him as he is” (p. 862).  C.S. Lewis wrote,  

“Of course, I pray for the dead.  The action is so spontaneous, so all but inevitable, that only the most compulsive theological case against it would deter me. And I hardly know how the rest of my prayers would survive if those for the dead were forbidden. At our age the majority of those we love best are dead. What sort of intercourse with God could I have if what I love best with unmentionable to Him?” (Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer).

Since it is so hard for us to know what is inside the human heart, in practice many of us approach All Souls’ as an occasion to remember and pray for all the dead, confident that God wants to save all his creatures, and hopeful that, in the end, God’s love will overcome all our human crankiness and resistance.   Perhaps, just perhaps, all the departed will one day be faithful departed since the faithfulness at issue is God’s, not ours. 

In the Apostles’ Creed, we say we believe in the Communion of Saints.  The blessed departed, who prayed in life and most certainly continue to pray in death, remain there for us.   They are not just a “great cloud of witnesses” in the arena seating cheering us on.  They actively work on our behalf, and give us strength, by their prayers and examples.  The great multitude of the rest of the dead—well, we pray for them, and by our prayers, hopefully help work God’s mercy in them.  

The Prayer Book’s Catechism teaches,

“The communion of saints is the whole family of God, the living and the dead, those whom we love and those whom we hurt, bound together in Christ by sacrament, prayer, and praise.  … [E]verlasting life [means] a new existence, in which we are united with all the people of God, in the joy of fully knowing and loving God and each other. … Our assurance as Christians is that nothing, not even death, shall separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord” (p. 862). 

All Saints’ and All Souls remind us of the hope in Christ that is in us, of how we are all called to be saints, and in some ways have already been made holy in baptism.  They remind us that indeed, God is at work in the world about us, that “things which were cast down are being raised up, and things which had grown old are being made new, and that all things are being brought to their perfection by him through whom all things were made…” (BCP, p. 540).  They remind us of our blessed assurance that in the end, all will be well, and all manner of thing shall be well. 

Grace and Peace, 

Fr. Tony+