Fr Robert Hendrickson

Dear Friends in Christ,

This week we mark two of the great feasts of the Church year, All Saints and All Souls. In the contemporary Church these two feasts are often conflated. You will see churches singing requiems on All Saints and often avoiding All Souls altogether. 

To my mind, this tendency perpetuates unhealthy attitudes toward grief, death, and hope that are endemic in our society. All Saints historically marks the victory of the Saints. We remember their faith, bravery, conviction, and example. We ask for their prayers to strengthen our own faith. 

All Souls is different. All Souls marks our prayers for all those who have gone before us whose faith may not have been saintly. All Souls is a feast in which we give thanks and pray for all those in our lives we’ve lost — it’s a more intimate feast than All Saints in many ways because grief and mourning are an intimate thing. 

We rush, in our culture, to press through grief. We want to avoid the reality of death and too often fail to metabolize the too human experience of loss and mourning. All Souls is our recognition that not all who die are saints but that all who die, those whom we mourn, are held in the heart of God and in our own hearts. 

As a friend half-jokingly puts it, All Saints is about Saint Mary and All Souls is about Aunt Mary. Both are part of our lives, both are part of our story, and both are part of our life of prayer and worship. 

I’m always thankful for All Souls and All Saints. I’ve lost many, many people in my life as many of you have. The circumstances, the personalities, their legacies, and their faith have been all over the place. I’m grateful that the Church does not pretend they are all saints but that it gives me the opportunity to pray for them, to find peace with them, and to grow in faith, charity, and hope in these two very different but intimately connected days of worship and prayer. 

Yours in Christ,

Fr Robert