All Saints’ and All Souls’ Observation, November 1 and 2.
November is a liminal time, when the boundary of this world and the next is drawn thin. Leaves brighten and fall, geese fly south, and the days shorten; we are put in mind of the end of our lives and the closeness of the next. The Church marks this liminal time with two of the most important feasts in the Church Calendar: All Saints’ Day on November 1st, and All Soul’s Day on November 2nd.
At Saint Matthew’s we will observe All Saints on Friday Nov 1 with a 12pm Festal Eucharist with music, and All Souls on Nov 2 with a 5pm Holy Eucharist, the music setting being from Fauré’s Requiem.
On All Saints Day we celebrate that we are part of a great communion of saints from all times and places, known and unknown people who have had their lives opened by God and become windows into a redeemed humanity. Gathered about us that day are the great Saints: Saint Francis, Saint Brigit, Saint Clare, Saint Jerome, Saint Matthew, Saint Elizabeth, Blessed Julian, and ‘rank on rank, myriads on myriads’ more. Their holiness and happiness is a light in which we float, in which we can share, and which can change us.
On All Souls’ Day is quieter, more somber. We pray for all those who have gone before us into God’s care, praying for their eternal well being, giving thanks for their lives, and seeking consolation for ourselves as our losses are remembered. We remember not only those close to us but the tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, who have died this year from war, famine, and disease, offering them all up to God’s mercy and love.