Gathered with All the Saints
Each year, as October turns into November, the Church invites us into one of its most beautiful and hope-filled celebrations: All Saints’ Day. It is a time when we remember that we are not alone in faith. We are part of a great communion that stretches across time and space, uniting the saints of history with the saints of today, ordinary people seeking to follow Christ in love, mercy, and justice.
In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul describes the saints as those who have received “an inheritance” in Christ, whose lives reveal the hope and glory of God’s presence in the world. This inheritance is not reserved for a select few. It is the gift of belonging to the Body of Christ, a belonging that endures through every generation. The saints, both those whose names we know and those known only to God, shine as signs of that enduring love.
The Gospel reading from Luke takes us deeper into what such a life looks like. Jesus blesses those who are poor, hungry, weeping, and rejected. He lifts up the humble and calls us to love our enemies, to give without expecting return, and to show mercy as God shows mercy. These teachings remind us that sainthood is not about perfection. It is about trust, a willingness to let God’s grace reshape our hearts so that compassion, forgiveness, and peace flow more freely from us.
In this light, All Saints’ Day becomes less a memorial of the past and more a call to live faithfully in the present. We honor those who have gone before us not only by remembering them, but by continuing the work they began, by becoming, in our own ways, vessels of light in a sometimes shadowed world. When we gather around the table for Communion this weekend, we do so in the company of all the saints. Their prayers join ours, their witness strengthens us, and their joy becomes part of our own.
Each of our services this weekend will help us experience that communion in a unique way. The Celtic service on Saturday at 6 pm invites quiet reflection and connection with creation, echoing the ancient understanding that the natural world itself praises God. The Rite 1 service on Sunday at 8 am, with its traditional language, connects us with the generations who have prayed those same words before us. And our typical worship service at 10 am celebrates the living faith of the community today, open and vibrant, carried forward in word and song.
However we worship, we are invited to remember that every act of kindness, every prayer spoken in love, and every step toward peace participates in the holiness of God’s people. The saints remind us that grace can take root anywhere, in monasteries and marketplaces, in quiet hearts and in communities like ours.
As we celebrate All Saints’ Day together, may we look around and see the saints among us: those who show mercy, who listen deeply, who serve quietly, who forgive, who hope. May we recognize the holy ground we already stand upon, and may our lives, like theirs, bear the light of Christ for the world to see.
Kevin+
