RBWords

     I wonder why we don't just combine All Saints Day and All Souls Day into one big celebration and call it "Holiness Days!"  (We could try reforming Halloween as well, but....one thing at a time!]  The distinction between the two days was once very stark.  On All Saints' Day, we Catholic kids didn't go to school but we did go to church.  The priest often wore gold vestments and celebrated "high mass."  The next day it was like nonstop funerals.  The priest wore black vestments and was permitted to say three masses.  The whole thing was calculated to separate "saints" from "souls in purgatory."  For some reason, we just couldn't think of a "saint" in the same thought as we could think of a "sinner."  

     We begin our lives as saints.  At our baptism, we are about as holy as any human can get.  "Canonized" saints are folks who took their baptismal commitment seriously and are held up as examples to us!  I love the old story of the pastor who came to talk to a class of school children about All Saints Day.  He asked the class how many of them would like to be saints!  All hands but one go up!  He asks the one child why not?  The child replied, "'Cuz they're all dead!"  All of us who are baptized are members of the "communion of saints," including all those whose memory we celebrate on All Souls Day.  We are all alive in Christ.  Death simply marks a milestone in the journey, not an end to it!  

     When I was a pastor in San Antonio, I admired the custom of the Hispanic community in not only decorating the tombs of deceased members of the family, but literally spending the day with them!  Those whom we love stay with us whether they live in time or in eternity.  We share with them the baptismal call to holiness even if our struggles can make us less worthy (sinful) at times.  A saint is someone who, when they fall, gets up and keeps trying.  All Saints Day and All Souls Day should remind us to keep trying.  AMEN