All Saints’ Day 2010
Posted by Isaac Butterworth | Filed under Liturgical Year
All Saints Day falls each year on November 1, the day after ‘All Hallows’ Eve’ (or ‘Hallowe’en,’ as it has come to be called). It is a day for remembering with thanksgiving those who have gone before us into the Church Triumphant. As the great hymn has it, ‘We feebly struggle; they in glory shine.’
While some traditions assign a special status of sainthood to the few, Scripture refers to ALL God’s people as ‘saints.’ The word actually means ‘those who are being sanctified’ or ‘made holy’ (or hallowed).
Holiness itself means to be ‘set apart’ as God’s own. We belong to God and, therefore, God says to us in Scripture, ‘Be holy, because I am holy’ (Leviticus 11:44; see also 1 Peter 1:16).
Holiness involves purity in the sense that all other attachments are ‘burned away’ (‘pure’ comes from the Greek word pyr, meaning ‘fire’), and the saints are ‘set apart’ to belong exclusively to God.
While All Saints Day has passed (it fell on Monday of last week), it is still fitting that we remember the saints, the ‘holy ones’ of God, whom we have known and loved and who now ‘from their labors rest.’ Take a moment today to give thanks for the lives of those you have known who are now with God.
Photo credit: congregate by Martino
