This Sunday, November 1st is All Saints Day

Dear Congregation,

This Sunday, November 1st is All Saints Day. In worship we’ll sing the hymn “I Sing a Song of the Saints of God” which celebrates, not only saints from the past, some from the Bible, but expresses the idea that saints were, and are, those people who, because they love God, live that love in service to others. According to the hymn, saints are to be found in all walks of everyday life. We know that some saints are famous, but there are many more who are known only to the people with whom they come in contact. My favorite definition of a saint is what the little girl said after being told that the people in in the stained-glass windows of her church were saints, “Then saints are people the light shines through.”

Saints are like salt and light, flavoring, changing that to which they are added for the better, lighting a sometimes dark world with love. God is counting on us all, as a community in Christ and as individuals, to make real the words of the second verse of the hymn, “They loved their God and they lived that love. It was loving that made them strong. They did what was right, for Jesus’ sake, lived justly their whole lives long.”

And so I invite you to be in worship Sunday when we’ll share Holy Communion with each other and with the Saints. May Christ’s light and love shine through you. God knows, literally, that we have need of saints.

In Christ’s love,

Pastor Candy