All Souls/Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed, 11/2

Today is All Souls Day, or the Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed. Yesterday was All Saints day-one of the major feasts of the church. It happened to be on a Sunday this year, so those of you who went to church yesterday got to celebrate on the actual day this time around! All Saints is also recommended in the Book of Common Prayer as one of the four days to have baptisms. On All Saints day we sing songs about saints and in general talk about the saints who have come before and those who have yet to come.

But what about All Souls day? What is this all about? I'm going to quote the following from the Episcopal Church's Lesser Feasts and Fasts, a resource that contains information about and prayers for the lesser feasts in the church year. LFF has to say about this day:

"In the New Testament, the word 'saints' is used to describe the entire membership of the Christian community, and in the Collect [a type of prayer] for All Saints' Day the word 'elect' is used in a similar sense. From very early times, however, the word 'saint' came to be applied primarily to persons of heroic sanctity, whose deeds were recalled with gratitude by later generations.

Beginning in the tenth century, it became customary to set aside another day--as a sort of extension of All Saints--on which the Church remembered that vast body of the faithful who, though no less members of the company of the redeemed, are unknown in the wider fellowship of the Church. It was also a day for particular remembrance of family members and friends.

Though the observance of the day was abolished at the Reformation because of abuses connected with Masses for the dead, a renewed understanding of its meaning has led to a widespread acceptance of this commemoration among Anglicans, and to its inclusion as an optional observance in the calendar of the Episcopal Church."

Some of you may have heard in the announcements mention of a list of the departed to which you could add the name of loved ones who have died. In many churches, like Grace, there is a service on All Souls during which the names of those we wish to remember who have passed on are read aloud. It's a chance for us all to take a moment and rejoice in the lives of those we love who have gone to their eternal rest.

It's also a chance for us to remember the hope of the resurrection-death no longer has control over us. Yes, we'll die, but not for good. Jesus made sure of that when He died for all of our sins and rose again-death's hold no longer exists on the faithful. This lets us rejoice in the lives of our friends and families. That doesn't mean we can't be sad that those we love are no longer with us, but it takes away the hopelessness of our grief.

I can think of no better way to end this post than with a famous poem by the Anglican seventeenth century poet and priest John Donne. Some of you may have heard it before, and for others it may be new. It's one of my favorites, however, and speaks the the hope of our eternal life in Christ. May we take this day to remember those we love, and to rejoice that we will all one day be singing in heaven around God's throne.

Sonnet 6 from Holy Sonnets, John Donne

Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for, thou art not so,
For, those, whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poor death, nor yet canst thou kill me;
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.
Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desparate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy, or charms can make us sleep as well,
And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more, Death thou shalt die.