All Saints' Day

How it thrills me when I hear the words of the Liturgy, "Therefore with the angels and archangels and all the company of Heaven," for I know that she is there with the company of Heaven, the Communion of Saints, with the Lord. The nearer I come to my Lord in Holy Communion, the nearer I come to the saints, to my own loved ones.....

Do learn to love the Altar as the meeting place with your beloved who have passed within the veil. Here again the Sacrament is the heart of our religion. The Blessed sacrament links us not merely to Bethlehem and Calvary, but to the whole world beyond the grave as well, for at the Altar, the infinite is shrined in the finite; Heaven stoops down to earth; and the seen and unseen meet.

Berthold Von Schenk

The One I Love, Whose Name I Do Not Know

When our baby died almost a year ago it was only a tiny little fetus.  I did not have the opportunity to hold, name, (though while I was pregnant, our girls would call the baby, P.E.R.C.- the initials of names we were considering), or say goodbye .  Our dear friend and pastor, Gerry offered to hold a funeral for our child, but David and I decided not to have one.  I wonder now if that had been the right choice.  When babies die this way, this early, there seems to be an expectation in our society that we are to 'move on' and not spend too much time grieving, and I'm sure that influenced our decision.

Today is All Saints Sunday.  As I wrote in my previous post, November 1st was All Saints Day, but many congregations will remember those who have died in Christ today.  David and I talked about if we should include our baby among those who will be remembered, and I spoke with another dear friend and pastor, Mark, and we've made a different kind of decision for today.  Today, when the names of those in our congregation who have died this past year are named and remembered, our little one will be remembered too, as Baby Hawkins.  I wish we had a name for him or her, but I know she or he is not without one.  Revelation 2:17 says:

To the one who conquers I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, with a new name written on the stone that no one knows except the one who receives it.

C.S. Lewis writes of this verse in The Problem of Pain, 

What can be more a man's own than this new name which even in eternity remains a secret between God and him? And what shall we take this secrecy to mean? Surely, that each of the redeemed shall forever know and praise some one aspect of the divine beauty better than any other creature can. Why else were individuals created, but that God, loving all infinitely, should love each differently? And this difference, so far from impairing, floods with meaning the love of all blessed creatures for one another, the communion of the saints. If all experienced God in the same way and returned Him an identical worship, the song of the church triumphant would have no symphony, it would be like an orchestra in which all the instruments played the same note. Aristotle has told us that a city is a unity of unlikes, and St. Paul that a body is a unity of different members. Heaven is a city, and a Body, because the blessed remain eternally different: a society, because each has something to tell all the others - fresh and ever fresh news of the 'My God' whom each finds in Him whom all praise as 'Our God.' For doubtless the continually successful, yet never completed, attempt by each soul to communicate its unique vision to all others (and that by means whereof earthly art and philosophy are but clumsy imitations) is also among the ends for which the individual was created.

Our child has a name, one more perfect and revealing than our family could have chosen, given by the One who loves perfectly, just as all the saints do.  Today is a day we don't just 'move on' or any other such ridiculous notion, but we remember, even as we look forward in hope. 

All Hallows' Eve

I am of a different mind ten times in the course of a day. But I resist the devil, and often it is with a fart that I chase him away. When he tempts me with silly sins I say, “Devil, yesterday I broke wind too. Have you written it down on your list?”

The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn.

- Martin Luther

Tomorrow is All Saints Day, when we remember all who have died  in the Lord.  Today, or technically tonight, is All Hallows' Eve, or Halloween.  All Hallows' Eve, historically, is a day when the Christian community has said to Satan, "You have no power over us.  Our Lord has defeated you and the powers of sin and death, therefore, we trust in his love and power and will be victorious."  Thus comes the tradition of dressing up in costumes - to mock Satan.


It is also Reformation Day and for many Protestants, the day when we commemorate the reformation of the church. Is it any wonder that Martin Luther, who struggled mightily with Satan and accepting Christ's power of forgiveness and atonement, would choose All Hallows' Eve to nail his Ninety-five Thesis to the door of the church in Wittenberg?  This document that mainly challenged the use of indulgences required by the Church to pay for one's self or loved ones out of the punishment of purgatory, would be seen by many.  (Unknown to Luther, it was soon after printed in the vernacular so that it could be read by even more.)  A very daring act for a monk and teacher in the Church.  An act that flouted and dared the powers of evil which had become entrenched in the hierarchy of the Church at that time.

This day is largely a secular holiday in the States. While I don't minimize the destruction that can be done with the wrong attitude, I really hope that soon, we who are Christians can reclaim the attitude and perspective in which it began nearly two thousand years ago.  This is a day to remember whose world this really is, and that for the spirits and forces that would destroy, their power is not only limited, but has an expiration date.

C.S. Lewis says in his preface to The Screwtape Letters,

There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight.

So, today, to the Devil who would tempt and discourage and destroy, I say, "Boo!", and remember all those who've gone before me, who in word and deed, often at great sacrifice, did the same.

Almighty God,
your saints are one with you
in the mystical body of Christ:
give us grace to follow them
in all virtue and holiness
until we come to those inexpressible joys
which you have prepared for those
who truly love you;

through Jesus Christ our Lord,
who is alive with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God now and for ever.
Amen.