The Feast of All Saints' (November 1, 2022)

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be alway acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, our Strength and our Redeemer. Amen.

God has knit thine elect in one communion and fellowship, in the mystical body of his Son, Christ our Lord.

This is a day set aside to reflect on the identity of the Church, especially as we commemorate all the saints who aren’t included in the Church Kalendar, and also consider what it means for us to be a part of the Church. In our Prayer of Thanksgiving at Mass, we acknowledge that, to be a member of the Church, means to be “members incorporate in the mystical body of the Son, which is the blessed company of all faithful people.” It is mystical because, in spite of the visible fractures and unhappy divisions that characterize the Church post-Reformation there is an underlying and visible unity that is located in Christ. As a result, then, we can say that the Church includes all faithful people.

The Collect for today speaks to this when it says that God hast “knit together thine elect in one communion and fellowship.” How are we knit together? The answer is through Baptism where we become united to Christ by virtue of his death. Romans 6 tells us: “All of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” Because Baptism brings us into Christ, it conveys three benefits onto the soul: (1) It remits all sin, original and actual; (2) It bestows sanctifying grace and the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity; and (3) it makes the recipient a member of Christ, a child of God, and an inheritor of the Kingdom of Heaven.

But the collect implies that those of us who have been baptized still have progress to make: “Grant us grace so to follow thy blessed Saints in all virtuous and godly living, that we may come to those unspeakable joys which thou hast prepared for those who unfeignedly love thee.” Anglican theologian L.S. Thornton calls this tension that exists in the life of a Christian double polarity. “From one point of view,” he says, “the great transformation of the Christian life has already taken place once for all in baptism. We have been made partakers of Christ in the fullest sense…from another point of view the greatest transformation exists only in germ in each of us. Its fruition lies in the future and we are summoned to seek that fruition” (60-61). The Christian life, then, acknowledges that we have been saved, that we are being saved, and that we will be saved.

And this is why we celebrate the Feast of All Saints’: a time for us to reflect on the Great Communion of the Saints, those who have gone before us in the fullness of faith and set examples for us to follow just as St. Paul instructs the Corinthians in his first epistle to them that they are to follow him as he follows Christ (1 Cor 11:1). So we meditate on the angels and archangels, the patriarchs and prophets, the disciples, Apostles, Evangelists, Innocents, Bishops, Confessors, Doctors, Priests, Monks, Hermits, Virgins, Widows, and all other faithful Christians who have gone before us and how we might imitate them as they imitate Christ and we request their prayers for us that the germ of transformation that exists in us might unfold and grow until we reach our final destination: Christification, where we are made to be like Christ.

So today, we have a wonderful opportunity to remember our own baptisms. This involves two actions: First, we take comfort because what God has done for us by uniting us to this great edifice of salvation that is the Church; second, we self-reflect by asking ourselves whether we are living into our baptisms. Are we fulfilling our baptismal vows? Where do we, with the help of God’s grace, need to bring ourselves into conformity with the Law of Love that is at the heart of the Gospel? So we think about the beginning of our Christian lives but we also consider the ends of them as we reflect on the Communion of Saints that we hope to join when we pass on from this life. May we remember and live into our baptisms and become more like our Lord and his saints who have gone before us.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen