Tag: All Saints Day

Remembering Our Saints

by Victoria S. Ubben

Halloween 2020, will be a Halloween like no other in the history of the USA. These really are frightening times for our nation and the world. We need not encourage our children and grandchildren to be “spooked” by ghosts and goblins and vampires and bats this year.

Our family knows personally of several people who have died recently from Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), and perhaps your family does, too. (Thankfully, we also know of some who have recovered from COVID-19.) Besides remembering lives lost by COVID-19, this is the time to remember other lives lost due to violence, accidents, or various illnesses and other conditions.

I offer you three ways that you might find comfort in your distress.

1. Music might help.  To help me remember all of the saints who have died this year, I recently to listened to a recorded version of Requiem in D minor, Op. D by Gabriel Faure’ (1845-1924) and I share with you a link to a video so that you can hear it also.

Here is an English translation of some of the Latin lyrics that are comforting and uplifting during what is a sad or frightening time to many people:

“May eternal light shine on them, O Lord,
with Thy saints forever,
because Thou are merciful.

Grant them eternal rest, O Lord,
and may perpetual light shine on them.”

2. Inspirational Prose might help. To help us remember all the saints who have died this year, find some prose or poetry with strong visual images. Here is one of my favorites:

Gone from My Sight by Henry Van Dyke (1852-1933)

I am standing upon the seashore.  A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean.  She is an object of beauty and strength. I stand and watch her until at length she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other.

 Then someone at my side says, “There, she is gone!” 

“Gone where?”  Gone from my sight.  That is all.  She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side and she is just as able to bear the load of living freight to her destined port. 

Her diminished size is in me, not her.  And just at the moment when someone at my side says: “There, she is gone!”  There are other eyes watching her coming and other voices ready to take up the glad shout: “Here she comes!” 

And that is dying.

3. Biblical readings and liturgy might help. To help us remember all the saints who have died this year, turn to the ancient scripture, liturgy, and religious traditions. Try reading these aloud (either alone or 6 feet apart from others). Here is a benediction with which to close.

One Voice: With clean hands and pure hearts, hold fast to the faith of the saints who went before us.

Many Voices:  In our living and in our dying, we all belong to God.

One Voice: With hopeful hearts and expectant spirits, receive the blessing of Almighty God.

Many Voices: In our living and in our dying, we all belong to God.

One Voice:  Thanks be to God!  Amen.

For All the Saints

by Abigail Conley

Today, I remember the saint who listened carefully as I recited the Beatitudes, the Lord’s Prayer and the books of the Bible. An ornament from that Sunday school teacher still hangs on my Christmas tree every year. My ten-year-old self was enamored with the decorated ball that I chose from the box she offered us.

Today, I remember the saint who shows up every Sunday to make coffee. Every Sunday. Like, as often as I do, and I’m paid to be there.

Today, I remember the saint who paid for a rental car so I could come and sleep and be fed in a friend’s home when my first call was so difficult.

Today, I remember the saint who offered his arm to the wobbly elderly woman, too proud for a cane, and made sure she reached her seat, received communion, and made it back to her car safely.

Today, I remember the saint who gave every kid in the church a half dollar every Sunday.

Today, I remember the saint who came and preached about his work as a missionary. I’m willing to bet the small box of natural cotton he brought with him to talk about his work is somewhere at my parents’ house. He was the first person of color I ever met there in the most unlikely of places.

Today, I remember the saint who listens intently to three-year-olds, not just nodding along like most adults, but discerning every word.

It is the season of remembering the saints who came before us. Dia de los Muertos celebrations begin this weekend and All Saints’ Day is not too far away either. Those who have gone before us were beloved and, presumably, gave us some things to emulate. In my congregation, we don’t worry too much about canonical saints. We’re much more likely to remember all our dead on All Saints’ Day.

In the midst of several memorial services in my congregation, I am increasingly aware of the profound process of becoming a saint. Most of us will never perform the miracles that grant official sainthood by the Roman Catholic Church or any other body. Instead, we will live faithful lives with beautiful, rich moments. People will have good things to say at our funerals, woven from the stories like the ones I remember about others.

I am most thankful for the saints who are close, who choose to be present day in and day out, and who show their love of neighbor and love of God in a thousand tiny ways. It is those people who taught me what becoming a saint looks like. Today, I remember all the gifts in becoming of the saints, too.