November 1 is the day the Christian church observes All Saints’ Day. In the Roman Catholic tradition, which colors most of what we think we know about saints, saints are people who lived a good life, performed a miracle of some kind, and died. They’ve been officially named as a saint (“canonized”), and their memory has stood the test of time. Originally each saint had his or her own saint’s day, but there are around forty thousand saints in the Roman Catholic tradition, so eventually most of them were celebrated on one day, All Saints’ Day.

For Presbyterians, forty thousand is just a start. In his letters, the apostle Paul uses the word “saints” to refer to the church, the church on earth. In my tradition, all who are united in Christ, whether dead or living, are saints. To be a “saint” means to be “sanctified,” to be made holy to serve God by the work of Christ through the Holy Spirit. On All Saints’ Day, our focus is not on extraordinary achievements of particular Christians, but on the grace and work of God through ordinary people. People like you and me. Whether or not you are comfortable claiming the title, we are the saints of God.

Even though the communion of saints includes people who are still living, many Protestant churches observe the first Sunday in November (“All Saints’ Sunday”) by remembering our dearly departed. Churches have developed creative and meaningful worship traditions; for example: lighting candles as the names of those who have died are read, bringing photos to place on the communion table, inviting worshipers to lay one fall leaf on the chancel for each person they want remembered, and singing, “For All the Saints,” a rousing hymn that begins with a low, vibrating G on the organ that you can feel almost as much as you can hear, and it gives me chills every time.

One of my Facebook friends, Marcella Auld Glass, the pastor of Calvary Presbyterian Church in San Francisco, reposted a list of prayer prompts for the month of November called, “Rejoicing in God’s Saints: A Daily Prayer Calendar for November.” This list was originally posted by Laura Stephens-Reed, a clergyperson and coach, in 2018. Each prompt for November 1st through the 30th invites us to express gratitude for the now-departed saints who have influenced our lives. I’ve found it to be a valuable prayer practice, not only for All Saints’ but for the month that includes Thanksgiving. It’s inspiring my gratitude, and as pretty much everybody knows by now, gratitude is good for you. I’m convinced it’s good to the world, as well. Research shows that people who keep daily gratitude journals exercise more regularly, complain of fewer illness symptoms, and feel better about their lives overall. They also feel more loving, forgiving, joyful, enthusiastic, and optimistic about their futures, while their family and friends report that they seem happier and are more pleasant to be around. Research further reveals that gratitude helps people feel more positive emotions, relish good experiences, deal with adversity, be more patient, and build strong relationships. That makes gratitude sound like a self-help wonder drug, and maybe it is, but I believe gratitude could also be healing for our planet and many of the divisions plaguing our polarized world. Imagine if we were so grateful for this good earth that we took care of it. Imagine if we were so grateful for the legacy of democracy we’ve inherited that we all voted. Imagine if we were so grateful for food, clothing, and shelter that we took steps to make sure everyone’s basic needs are met.

Gratitude for the people who have influenced us also helps us remember, as Peter Gomes wrote, “a saint in the early and reformed churches … was one who … was not so much perfect as persevering.” If we remember that the people who mentored us, parented us, inspired us, challenged us, and taught us were not perfect, but still made our lives better, our world better, might we not have more patience, more compassion, more empathy for the people in our lives now who are not perfect? Which is everyone, right? And for ourselves, too?

You can read Stephens-Reed’s list here: https://www.laurastephensreed.com/blog/resource-re-post-rejoicing-in-gods-saints-prayer-calendar.

Mary W. Anderson writes, “When the low G sounds on the organ, announcing the beginning of R. Vaughan Williams’s tune to the hymn ‘For All the Saints,’ I feel as though the rumbling of that low bass note calls us to worship the communion of saints. It is a call to St. Peter and St. Paul, to Mary Magdalene and Mother Teresa, to Martin Luther and Martin Luther King Jr. As we remember these strong shoulders on which we stand, we are challenged to strengthen our own shoulders. We are ancestors in the making after all, saints for a generation yet unborn. It is an awesome opportunity. Rise up, O saints of God!”

“For All the Saints”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21GTTM2TIYA