All Saints Day / All Saints Sunday
Though we especially commemorate and celebrate those in the Church Triumphant and their forebears, All Saints also is for those of us in the visible church, a day for everyone God has chosen, called, sanctified, and sent.
When churches observe Reformation and October 31st isn't a Sunday, the last Sunday of October becomes Reformation. You may know Halloween on October 31st as All Hallows' Eve—the day before All Saints on November 1st. A hallowed person, place, or event is a holy one.
In Central and Latin American culture, November 2nd is Day of the Dead – Día de los Muertos.
Sanctification, theosis, and divinization all mean the same thing. Eastern Christianity tends to use "theosis" with its Theo or God word root; Western Christians typically refer to "sanctification." That sac prefix means holy, as in the Sanctus–"Holy, Holy, Holy" we sing during the liturgy. With its root in divine, "divinization" means the same. All three terms describe the Holy Spirit inspired process of claiming, growing into, and living out our divine nature of being holy, just as God is holy. Some church bodies place themselves very consciously within what's called holiness traditions.
Saints Alive
For All Saints many churches display pictures and mementos of beloved saints; we celebrate their lives, cherish their memories, often still feel and grieve their loss. Saints or holy ones could be neighbors, parents, friends, relatives, colleagues still on earth or in heaven. Saints can be people in scripture or universally famous ones. What saints do you especially admire, remember, and maybe try to emulate? Today's remembrance includes all of us still in the visible church. "All of us" because in baptism we receive the Holy Spirit and become hallowed or sanctified; we become saints.
At the start of Leviticus 19 we hear,
1 The Lord spoke to Moses, saying:
2 "Speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel and say to them: You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy."
Holy people? Holy God? Leviticus 19 then outlines the essence of the Ten Commandments, with added details.
Writing to the church in diaspora, 1 Peter 1:16 quotes Leviticus, "for it is written, 'You shall be holy, for I am holy.'"
The baptismal hymn in 1 Peter declares to us:
You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, people of God's possession,Becoming more holy, just as God is holy. Hallowed be each of our names? Yet even as we act with greater justice, love, mercy, and righteousness, our holiness (sanctification, divinization) depends not on our actions but on God's grace and love.
So that you may proclaim the mighty acts of God who called you out of darkness into marvelous light.
Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people;
Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
1 Peter 2:9-10
All Things New
Our Judeo-Christian scriptures are clear about the reality of death. Physical, social, emotional, financial and other deaths. Death is real but hope is real.
The Día de los Muertos website explains, "The skulls are often drawn with a smile as to laugh at death itself."
With many life-giving, hopeful promises, Revelation 7:9-17 is the first reading for All Saints.
Later on in Revelation 21:1-5:
1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. 2 And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,All Saints 2023."See, the home of God is among mortals.4 "God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away." 5 And the one seated upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. Also he said, "Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true."
God will dwell with them;
they will be God's peoples,
God will be with them and be their God;
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