Remembering them

All Souls' Day is a day of prayer and remembrance for the faithful departed. It is also sometimes called The Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed.

Many places seem to have merged the three days of Allhallowtide, which I think is a shame. I have always felt that remembering our dead is such a good thing, regardless of your faith tradition (or lack of one). Of the three days, this is the one most often left out.

Today I will be thinking of my mother and my father, but also other family members who have passed away. I will also be remembering all my friends who have died and the famous people and the unknown. Every single life is precious, and how wonderful it is to remember the souls of all those who have come before us.

Many folks will be in church today, especially it being a Sunday. Many will head to cemeteries afterward. Do you have any personal traditions for All Souls' Day? Feel free to share them here.

I mean to be one too

Let us now praise famous men, and our fathers that begat us. This one verse from Ecclesiasticus, used to be read every year on All Saints' Day, because it gives a good summary of what the day is all about. A passage from the Revelation to Saint John also helps explain the day. "These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb." 

Of course, a good preacher might be explaining the whole All Saints' Day concept to us, or we can look to a wonderful hymn that does an excellent job telling the story.  Written by a young Englishwoman, Lesbia Scott and first published back in 1929, "I sing a song of the saints of God" clearly sets out what All Saints' Day is all about. 

Today we honor all the saints, known and unknown. In the belief that there is a prayerful spiritual bond between those in heaven and those still living, we honor not only the named saints (such as those pictured in the icon here), but all the faithful. The word "all" is important to me here because I firmly believe that it is not just about the Blessed Virgin Mary, Blessed Paul the Apostle, Blessed Francis of Assisi, and the rest. It is about every single one of us because we all have the ability to do good things and to make a difference. 

Lesbia Scott's words seem to say the same thing. She lists a doctor, a queen, and a shepherdess in her first verse and then continues the list adding a soldier and a priest and one who was slain, in verse number two. It's really the third verse though that give me the greatest hope: 

"They lived not only in ages past,

There are hundreds of thousands still.

The world is bright with the joyous saints

Who love to do Jesus' will.

You can meet them in school, or in lanes, or at sea,

In church, or in trains, or in shops, or at tea;

For the saints of God are just folk like me,

And I mean to be one too."

There's the kicker: "And I mean to be one too." Yes, today is a celebration of the various saints down through the ages, but that is only part of it. "They lived not only in ages past, There are hundreds of thousands still."  Celebration?  Certainly.  Today though is also an invitation.  "And I mean to be one too."