All Saints & All Faithful Departed

We will celebrate the feast of All Saints on November 3 (technically it is Nov. 1, but the Book of Common Prayer allows us to move it to the closest Sunday). On that day we praise God for the shining lights of our faith - Francis of Assisi, Mother Theresa, Julian of Norwich, Martin Luther King Jr., Mary Magdalene, Paul and Peter, and many others - who have showed us the way to God. They have revealed God's kingdom in unique and powerful ways. And so we remember them, praise God for them, and try to emulate their examples.

At Saint Francis, we also remember those lesser saints in our lives, who have no less powerfully shaped our journey with God - grandmothers and grandfathers, godparents, parents, dear neighbors and friends, priests and pastors and deacons. This tradition of ours combines two separate feast days in our church - All Saints (Nov. 1) and All Faithful Departed (Nov. 2). The Commemoration of All Faithful Departed was adopted by our current Book of Common Prayer (back in 1979) as a way to emphasize the unity of the living and the dead in Christ, and as a recognition, I believe, that "saints," as the New Testament uses the word, includes all those who have been redeemed by Christ, both heroic saints (like Mother Theresa) and ordinary saints (like my grandfather).

Thus, all are invited on Nov. 3 to bring pictures or mementos of dearly departed loved ones who have died in the faith. We will place them on special altars of remembrance and light candles for them, praising God for God's faithfulness to all the saints, the heroic ones and the ordinary ones.

And may we vow every day to be saints too.