Understanding All Saints Day as a Beautiful Reminder of God’s Love
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If your childhood was anything like mine, you knew quite a bit about All Saints Eve (better known as Halloween) growing up, but not terribly much about All Saints Day.
1. Look through photo albums and share stories: Remember family and friends of great faith by flipping through old photo albums and recalling precious moments, wise teachings, and happy times.
2. Listen to old gospel or religious music: While we can find plenty of excellent contemporary Christian music on the radio today, gospel songs and old-time hymns are also beautiful and historical representations of times gone by. You can find them on YouTube, Spotify, Pandora, Apple Music, and other music services. As you listen, reflect on the universal truth of Jesus’s teachings. These songs might be of an older style, but their meaning applies just as much today as it did when they were first written. Through these timeless songs, the God-given gifts of these departed saints remain.
3. Read a book: C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien were Christians, as were Jane Austen and Flannery O’Connor. As with older music, rereading these classic literary greats provides yet another perspective on the universality of Christ in an ever-changing world.
4. Pray: Pray for those who have passed, and their family and legacies left behind. May they continue, growing ever-stronger, to glorify God.
5. Consider your own actions: Saints modeled their lives after Jesus. We, too, have to do the same by honoring Jesus’s actions, teachings, and commandments. Foremost, Jesus urged us to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” and to “love your neighbor as yourself,” calling these two the greatest commandments (Matthew 22:36-40). He also said much about what it looks like to lead a God-inspired life. A read through his Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) urges us to shine the light of the Lord, to love our enemies, to be generous and to pray sincerely, to trust God will provide, and to center your life on the Lord, among other things. Let this be your guide. Let the model Christ offered be your model, too.
Dear God,
Thank You for Your promise of salvation. Thank You for those who have gone before me and have paved the way for my own faith journey. Help me to appreciate their sacrifices and their lives and see the ways they point to You, and to take comfort in Your promises that when I believe in Your son and repent of my sins, I can rejoice in Your holy kingdom forever.
Amen.
Whether you celebrate All Saints Day in a big way or small, consider it a day to be thankful for the salvation of all.
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