All the Saints

Happy Halloween!!  And happy All Saints!  In the middle ages the two “celebrations” were put next to each other.  Halloween was a pagan Celtic celebration at the fall harvest, half-way between the autumnal equinox and the winter solstice.  All Saints started centuries earlier in the early church commemorating the martyrs during the centuries of persecution.  All Saints Sunday is this Sunday, and is a Sunday carved out of the church year to remember all those who have died in the last year.  Their names will be spoken during the Prayers and sand boxes will be set up during Holy Communion for lit tapers.  It can be a somber time of reflection and remembrance. 

            I think about all my loved ones.  My best friend from Jr. High and High School who died 4 years ago.  My great aunt Mary and her make-up and rum cake.  She lived a hard life but you would never have known it based on her stories and sense of humor.  My grandmom, who was surprisingly progressive for a woman who lived her entire life in the same house in Columbia, SC.  My mom!—she was a very strong personality, and I see a lot of her in me as I’ve gotten older.  I’m more sentimental than Stephanie, but every time we see a rainbow, she thinks of her dad.  At her lowest time of grief after he died, we saw a rainbow driving down Yellow Springs Rd.  And since then, rainbows seem to make appearances when we need them—symbols of reassurance and presence.  We saw one driving into URI this past weekend to see Caroline at Parents’ Weekend.  Thank you, Ron!

            All Saints evokes nostalgia for me, especially the bonds between family.  I think about how they live on—not in the memory of the living—but live on in Christ Jesus and his resurrection.  I imagine them gathered around the altar, the communion of saints.  “Whole and well in their praise” to echo some language from the liturgy.  What would they say to us today?  From their perspective from eternity?  How do we live in hope today knowing what the saints know?  There’s a promise there!—one we have in Christ and his resurrection.

Peace,

Pr. Christian