November 3, 2023

This week's celebration of the Feasts of All Saints and All Souls is among my favorite of our holy days. If we go way back in the tradition, these two days are part of the fuller season of Allhallowtide, which actually includes the three days from 31 October to 2 November. Three is a sacred number in our tradition, of course, and for me these days feel truly sacred. It was an honor to spend time this week lighting candles and saying aloud the names of the saints of my life, your lives, and our lives together.

In the New Testament, the word "saints" describes the entire community of followers of The Way of Jesus. From the very early church, followers whose lives were particularly inspiring began to be described as "Saints" with a capital S. On All Saints' Day, November 1, we remember those Saints whose lives and actions we look to as models for our own. All Souls' Day, November 2, extends from All Saints' Day as a time to remember and honor deceased family and friends. We'll celebrate both together this Sunday, at both services. As The Book of Common Prayer 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.”

Of course, our ancestors and loved ones, our "great cloud of witnesses", as Scripture puts it, are always with us. But this is a time when the veil between this world and the next is considered paper-thin. We light candles to draw them closer to us, and us to them. We speak their names to keep them alive to us, even as we are acknowledging that death has no power to separate them from us.

My prayer this week is for you to feel that sacred connection between people across time and space: a sense of the Saints, and the saints, to love and guard and guide you, and a sense of your own sainthood, as a follower of the Way of Love. My prayer for you this week is for an embracing of the Holy Mystery of these paper-thin days.