For All the Saints

Beloved in Christ, 

Today, All Saints Day, is one of the major celebrations of the year for followers of Jesus. It’s a day when we remember those whose lives who have reflected the light of God’s love with particular brilliance, or who have met the call to discipleship their moment demanded of them in particularly heroic ways.  In actual observance, this day is usually conflated with tomorrow’s commemoration of All Souls Day, where we remember all of our departed loved ones, whether or not they have been formally recognized as saints by the church. That’s mostly ok, but I also think we are being invited in these days to give a little more attention to the idea of sainthood, saints, and sanctity. 

All of us need heroes, people who model discipleship in particularly powerful ways, or who inspire us to love, give, and serve more fully for the sake of the gospel and the life of the world. Disciples like Martin Luther King, Jr., Francis of Assisi, Mother Teresa of Calcutta, Hildegard of Bingen, one of my one personal heroes Hiram Hisanori Kano, and countless others have changed the world in profound and irreversible ways through the way they responded to the call to follow Jesus. It matters that the church collectively has recognized them and holds them up as worthy of emulation in our own lives. We need lights that draw us, and the world, closer to the light of Jesus. One doesn’t need to be officially deemed a saint to be a hero or a role model, of course, but we do well to pay particular attention to those the whole body of the faithful have held up as shining with particular brightness. 

The world needs more saints. Followers of Jesus are often perceived as petty, hypocritical, and judgmental, rather than shining lights of love and justice. The saints we celebrate today were people whose holiness of life was contagious and compelling. They were so saturated with the Spirit’s presence and power, people wanted to be with them, and be like them, because they offered a glimpse of what it means to live in closer communion with the God whose very heart is loving community.

This past weekend’s diocesan convention was such an amazing, joyful, and holy celebration. In my address, I invited us to think about how we might focus for the next year on the basic practices of discipleship, and Canon Blair Pogue helped us wonder together on Saturday morning of what that might look like and how we might do that. The invitation to discipleship is not a self-indulgent exercise in self-improvement. It’s an invitation to begin living in such close communion with God that we start to shine a little brighter in our own lives, and that, God willing, we might follow the examples of the great saints of the church in our own day. It sounds crazy (but the Christian faith is nothing if it isn’t crazy), but I believe the church and the world need more saints, and that when we focus on discipleship, we are asking God to use us in spite of all of our shortcomings to draw others closer to God’s own heart. 

To paraphrase a line from the famous hymn for today: “And there’s not any reason, no, not the least, why you shouldn’t be one, too.” 

Grace and peace,

The Right Reverend Craig Loya
X Bishop