This time of years sees minds turning towards those we've lost – those we no longer see, and those we hope to see once again, come the resurrection.
The feast of All Saints is a tradition which the Church has kept for generations. It allows us to remember those who have gone before us, kept the faith and passed it onto us. Those without whom, we would have the richness of the inheritance of the Church.
Growing up as a protestant, I would never have given a second thought to something like All Saints day. Now, though, I see the value in honouring what has gone before. One doesn't have to be a Roman Catholic to understand that feasts such as All Saints help us to focus our minds on certain things at certain times.
The feast of All Saints is a time for gratitude to those – both known and unknown – who have influenced our faith. Here are just some of those we give thanks for...
The first disciples who must have been so terrified after Jesus crucifixion, yet who went on to found the Church and lay the groundwork for generations of Christian who followed.
The great Church fathers and mothers who set out so much of what we now understand to be the doctrines we should live by. Those who retreated to the desert to preserve the core essence of Christianity against domination by the empire.
We remember the missionaries who spread Christianity to distant shores. In the UK, St Augustine of Canterbury who arrived in 597 – and those Celtic monks who had beaten him to it!
We think of countless unnamed faithful believers who passed on their faith through the middle ages. The mystics and the evangelists and the poets who kept the faith alive until the arrival of the written word in mass produced form.
We remember William Tyndale who battled to translate the Bible into English. We remember Cranmer and Ridley and Latimer – martyrs who kept the faith. We remember Ignatius who taught us to pray in a different way, Rublev whose icons helped us see in a different way and Wesley who preached in a very different way
We remember those great social reformers who realised that the Kingdom could only be built where justice and righteousness flowed down. Wilberforce and Buxton – tireless campaigners against slavery. We remember Catherine and William Booth - founders of the Salvation Army and redoubtable social reformers.
We remember Maximilian Kolbe and his self sacrifice in the face of Nazi oppression – likewise Deitrich Bonhoeffer.
We remember pioneering women who refused to be second class citizens. We remember Dr King, Rosa Parks and the rest of those who fought for liberation. We remember Oscar Romero who stood up against torture and brutality, John Paul the Second who stood against the might of the Soviet Union, Dorothy Day who stood up for Christian values in the United States.
We think of those known only to us who have influenced our lives for the better and helped us to be more like Jesus. Ultimately – that's why we remember saints – because they point us to the one we share in common. Jesus of Nazareth, who started this whole movement off nearly 2,000 years ago...
