All Saints: Where Heaven and Earth Meet

The Feast of All Saints’ Day is a feast of hope. I see it as the most hopeful feast after Easter. Our celebration of Easter is what gives All Saints its hope. Because of the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus, God has given us eternal life. This is a life that begins here and now and a life that lasts forever. It is a life that connects us to all believers, living and dead.

The celebration of All Saints has its roots in the earliest centuries of Christianity, when the Church remembered those who had died as martyrs for their faith. Over time, the feast grew to include all the saints, both known and unknown. Later, the Church established All Souls’ Day on November 2 as a day to remember and pray for all the faithful departed, particularly the ordinary people whose lives were known and cherished by their families and friends.

Here at St John the Divine, we combine both feasts in our celebration of All Saints. We remember the great saints of the Church, whose faith and witness continue to inspire us, as well as those loved ones we have known and loved who have died. All belong to what we call the communion of saints, the whole family of God, living and dead, united in Christ. As we pray in our collect for this day, “You have knit together your elect in one communion and fellowship.”

This is a profound source of hope, especially for those who are grieving.

Death often feels like the ultimate separation. When someone we love dies, we lose the comfort of their presence, their touch, their voice, their smile, the ordinary moments of life together. The pain of that separation is real, and the Church does not ask us to pretend otherwise.

Perhaps this is the greatest gift of All Saints’ Day. It does not ask us to set aside our grief but invites us to see it in the light of Easter. It reminds us that death does not have the final word, that the love we have known is not ended, and that God’s love holds us all forever.

But our faith tells us that separation is not the end of the story. Jesus promised his disciples that he was going to prepare a place for them in his Father’s house. Through his death and resurrection, he has opened the way to eternal life. Those we love who have died are with God, and we are not separated from them forever.

Every Sunday, we enter this mystery in the celebration of the Eucharist. We are lifted up to God in heaven and join our voices with angels, archangels, and all the company of heaven. We participate in the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ, who is at the right hand of the Father, interceding for us.

All Saints’ Day offers us a particularly powerful opportunity to experience this connection. It is what we call a thin place, a time and space between heaven and earth where time and eternity meet.

During our worship, we speak aloud the names of those who have died. We say their names because we love them and miss them. We say their names to honor their lives and to remember that they belong to the great multitude of saints who have gone before us. And we say their names as an expression of our faith, that they are still part of the communion of saints, united with us in Christ.

Each year, our service of Evensong for All Saints offers a particularly meaningful opportunity to enter into this mystery. I especially invite those who are grieving the death of someone they love to come and hear their loved ones’ names solemnly spoken in the midst of our prayers. Through the beauty of sacred music, the words of Scripture, and the quiet dignity of this ancient form of worship, we will have an opportunity to remember, to grieve, and to be reminded of the hope that is ours in Jesus Christ. The music will give voice to both our sorrow and our faith, offering comfort in our loss and lifting our hearts toward the promise of eternal life.

Whether your loss is recent or many years past, we invite you to come, to hear the name of the one you love spoken aloud, and to be reminded that neither they nor you are forgotten by God.

Perhaps this is the greatest gift of All Saints’ Day. It does not ask us to set aside our grief but invites us to see it in the light of Easter. It reminds us that death does not have the final word, that the love we have known is not ended, and that God’s love holds us all forever.

I hope you will join us for Evensong as we remember those who have gone before us, give thanks for their lives, and find renewed hope in the promise of Jesus Christ, who has opened the gates of heaven to us all.

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Evensong at St. John the Divine