All Saints’ Day, which we have celebrated recently is not about a gallery of perfect people.
It’s about the light of Christ shining through fragile, human lives.
Every saint we remember – great or small, famous or hidden –
was a person whose life had been broken open,
so that grace could shine through.
The saints – those who have gone before us –
are not remote figures locked away in history.
They are near.
They are part of that great cloud of witnesses surrounding us even now.
Their gentle company comes to assist us, to steady us when we falter,
to remind us that grace is still at work.
We give thanks for those who taught us to pray,
who loved us when we didn’t deserve it,
and who bore their suffering with faith, hope, and love.
Some of you may know that I have recently lost a cousin, quite unexpectedly. As next of kin, clearing her flat these past few weeks has been quite a challenge, yet there have been moments of reflection, – photographs of myself – as a infant, and as a choir boy, pictures of my parents, aunts and uncles that make me realise that we remain joined together in one unbroken cord of love.
The Church teaches that our communion with the dead is not broken by death — rather, it is transformed. At our baptism we were united with Christ in His death and resurrection. That bond does not end when we die; it continues in a new and deeper way.
In this season of All Saints we remember that we, too,
are called to be part of the Communion of Saints, each of us,
broken and imperfect,
but still able to catch the light of Christ
and to reflect it into the world.
So, may God give us grace to live in that knowledge,
to shine as saints, until, through God’s mercy,
we too will glimpse the gate of heaven, and find ourselves immersed in the light of Christ, whose calm, yet persistent embrace leads us home.
Revd Andrew Woodward
