THE SUNDAY AFTER ALL SAINTS

November 5, 2023

Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church, Warwick, R. I.

 

 

On our observance of the Feast of All Saints, it seems opportune to remind ourselves that the word “saint” literally means “holy one.” In the Bible, the term refers to all the people of God. In the Old Testament, the “holy ones” or “saints” are the congregation of the people of Israel; in the New Testament, the “saints” are the assembly of the Church.

 

Early on in Church history, however, the word “saint” took on the more specialized meaning of the saints in heaven. In this more restricted sense, the saints are those departed Christians whose lives on earth exhibited such holiness that we’re sure that they must now be with God in Christ.

 

In the early Church, the definitive sign of sainthood was martyrdom. For the early Christian faithful there was no question that those who’d shed their blood and given their lives rather than deny the faith were now reigning with the Lord in glory. But as the early ages of persecution waned, it became clear that Christians of exemplary holiness who’d lived and died peacefully could also reliably be counted among the saints in heaven.

 

Like most ancient peoples, the early Christians revered their dead. So, they often gathered for worship, devotions, and festive banquets at the martyrs’ burial places, particularly on the anniversaries of their deaths, their “birthdays into heaven.” On these days they sometimes used the horizontal slab on top of the sarcophagus as a makeshift altar for celebrating the Eucharist. They soon discovered that the martyrs’ tombs were holy places, where healings and other miracles were apt to occur.

 

Beginning in the third or fourth century, churches began to be dedicated and named in honor of individual saints, often built over their earthly resting places. The most famous is St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, built over the cemetery on the Vatican Hill where Peter himself was buried. In other cases, where the burial place was too remote and hard to get to, a saint’s relics might be disinterred and brought to a more conveniently located church, where they were usually placed under the altar. 

 

At around the same time, the Church began to designate official feast days in memory of particular saints: usually the anniversaries of their deaths. And so, in the end, the term “saint” characteristically came to designate those heroes and heroines of the faith who had both churches and days in the calendar dedicated in their honor.

A problem began to emerge, however, when the Church found, after several major persecutions, that it had more martyrs than days in the year to commemorate them. So, between the fifth and ninth centuries, the Feast of All Saints grew up as a sort of catchall festival when the Church honored all the holy men and women throughout its history who’d lived and died in the faith of Christ. And in the year 732, Pope Gregory III dedicated a chapel to All the Saints in Saint Peter’s Basilica on November 1st, which has been kept ever since as All Saints Day in the Western Calendar.

 

So, we come full circle to the biblical understanding of the saints as a great multitude, many more than we can name or number. While we remember and celebrate some of the more notable ones on their designated days in the Church year, All Saints Day reminds us of the millions of anonymous holy men and women down through the centuries who’ve gone before us to their heavenly reward: a great cloud of witnesses cheering us on as we run the race that they’ve completed ahead of us.

 

Now, when we have questions about what the Episcopal Church believes, practices, and teaches, one of the key sources for us is the Book of Common Prayer. And I’d like to draw your attention to two texts in the Prayerbook that elucidate the Church’s teaching on the saints. If you’d please be so good, open your Prayerbooks to page 504. (Don’t worry, I don’t intend to make a habit of this, but every once in a while, it can be helpful.)

You’ll notice that we find here some of the Additional Prayers for use in the Burial Service. Now, please follow along with me while I read the second prayer on page 504. [Read the prayer.]

 

This prayer reinforces some of the points I’ve just been making. On All Saints Day we praise and glorify God for the Blessed Virgin Mary, and all God’s other righteous servants known to us and unknown. And then the prayer describes our relationship with these saints. They encourage us by their examples; they aid us with their prayers; they strengthen us with their fellowship—so that by the merits of Jesus Christ we can look forward in hope to becoming partakers of their inheritance in the heavenly light.

 

For this reason, incidentally, it’s perfectly legitimate to ask the saints in heaven for their prayers. Just as we ask one another here on earth for prayers in times of need, so the Blessed Virgin Mary and all the saints in heaven intercede for us. It’s right there in the Prayerbook!

 

Now, if you would, please follow along as I read the fourth prayer on page 504, found at the bottom of the page. [Read the prayer.]

 

Here we encounter a slightly different kind of relationship with those who’ve gone before us. Instead of the saints in heaven praying for us, here we pray for those whom we love but see no longer—that God will give them peace, that light perpetual will shine upon them, and that God will work in them the good purpose of his perfect will. 

 

This prayer is perhaps more suited to All Souls Day on November 2nd than to All Saints Day on November 1st. It reminds us that most of us, when we die, still have some considerable way to go before we’re ready to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light. The good news, however, is that even at the moment of death, God still isn’t finished with us. Between this life and the world to come, there’s an intermediate stage of continued growth in grace and holiness—purging away all our imperfections, reforming us into the creatures that God intended us to be from the beginning, and so making us ready to enter into the brightness of divine glory.

 

To put it briefly, then, the difference between All Saints Day and All Souls day is that the one focuses our attention on those whose prayers we need, whereas the other focuses our attention on those who need our prayers. But these two relationships are merely different dimensions of the same great mystery of the Communion of Saints. By virtue of our common baptism, we enjoy fellowship in Christ with both the living and the dead. As so, as the great hymn puts it: “yet all are one in thee, for all are thine. Alleluia, alleluia.”