Remembering Saint Congregations on All Saints Day

Collaborator Chelsey Hillyer invites you to remember saint congregations and their legacy of faith on All Saints Day.

In the Western church, many communities of faith will observe All Saints Day in services this weekend. The November 1st observance of All Saints dates back to the mid-700s (CE) when Pope Gregory III dedicated a chapel in St. Peter’s, Rome in honor of all saints. By the 9th century, All Saints Day had become a regular item on the English calendar, and in medieval England, the festival was known as All Hallows (whose eve is still known as Halloween). Some may still even observe Allhallowtide–a period from October 31 to the November 2nd observance of the Catholic day of commemoration known as All Soul’s Day.

Whether communities observe All Saints Day through mass and eucharist, through the sharing of pictures, lighting candles, or ringing of a bell, many Christians turn their thoughts toward the “communion of saints” and the “great cloud of witnesses” this week. Whether remembering canonized saints or (for Protestants) the saints of the faith who have helped and instructed us in our own lives, we take time to pause, to honor their memories, and to bear witness to their impact on our lives and faith. All Saints is  a humbling celebration, one that reminds us that the Christian faith has always been transmitted through relationships.

In my own life, All Saints Day calls to mind the people who guided me in faith, especially those who have gone on to eternal life. Sometimes, I was aware of the guidance while the person was still living. My grandmother is one of those saints. On Christmas Eve, she and I would wait up and attend the late services together, slipping into the balcony of my cousins’ church and talking about the sermon on the drive home. 

There are others whose influence I didn’t realize until after their deaths, like the family friend who became an extra grandfather to me. This saint taught me how to fish and spent countless hours listening to my stories and jokes. When I presented him with a crayon drawing of us holding up our catches, he framed it and hung it on the wall. It didn’t occur to me that he formed me in faith until I attended his memorial service. Before then, I knew he’d attended church, but had never made the connection between his loving ways and his faith. Indeed, he was one who had preached the Gospel to me, even without words.

But on All Saints Day in 2017, I found myself remembering not only individuals, but a whole community. Earlier that year, I had shepherded the congregation at Union United Methodist Church in St. Louis, Missouri to closure. I loved the community dearly, and spent the last year before we closed listening to and telling the stories of this community and its people. On the day of our last service in June 2017, person after person stood to name the ways that being connected to this particular congregation had impacted their lives, had formed them in faith.

Though its members moved to join other communities of faith, though the church had died, the witness of Union as a congregation still felt present to me. I felt moved to light a candle and honor them in my own observance. Union had become a saint congregation.

From its beginning, Christianity has been maintained by saint communities in particular times and places. Every church has begun and ended, whether through the shifting of its members, as human lives gave way to age, or out of financial strain. As I thought about Union, I also thought about every congregation that had come before it, fading, sometimes unnamed, into history. Without Union, I would not be the person of faith that I am, and I realized the same is true of all the communities of faith that came before.

This year, as we remember individual saints on All Saints Day, we at Good Friday Collaborative invite you to join us in remembering Saint Congregations: Those communities that have made room for you to experience love, to find formation, and to build relationships with those who taught you what it meant to be a person of faith. Even if the church no longer worships together. Perhaps especially, then.

Remember your saint congregation. Remember the ways they shaped your faith in real time. And remember the ways they continue to shape your faith through your memories.  Every good work accomplished through those congregations continues to live in you.

This Saint Congregations Memory wall was created in 2022 by Facebook followers of the Good Friday Collaborative.  We invited each person to share a name and photo, so that we could together hold those community’s in God’s light and eternal memory.

On All Saints Day, Rev. Lorrin Radzik will share a prayer resource specifically designed to help you remember. Until then, know that we stand with you as you remember the congregations that have shaped you and that have concluded their ministry, knowing that their work continues in the world through you.