Prayers for All Saints
The world’s worst-kept secret at the moment is that Hallowe’en is fast approaching. By the time you read this, the annual festivities may have come and gone. The appeal of trick-or-treating and (in many cases) far less wholesome teen and young adult activities may diminish with the passage of seasons. But the time is always ripe for learning and growing – and that, no matter how “grown up” we get.
“Hallowe’en” is short for “All Hallows’ Evening.” The Church’s calendar renders it less confusing as the “Eve of All Saints Day.” It is a festival set apart to commemorate those who departed in the faith and to look forward to the rest and everlasting light that awaits us after death.
With this in mind, there are couple obscure matters to shed light upon. Firstly, the Feast of All Saints on November 1st is not a Christianization of the pagan holiday observed among the Celts called “Samhain.” The earliest mention of Samhain (at least in written records) dates no earlier than the late tenth century A.D. According to folk tradition, the British pagans instituted rites in order to placate the departed spirits, keeping their mischief at bay.
As early as the time of Pope St. Gregory the Great (r. 590-604), one source mentions that the Festival of All Saints had to be moved to November 1st because the pilgrims, many of whom had started coming from the cold reaches of northern Europe, couldn’t stand the warm Italian climate during hotter parts of the year. At least once in their lives, Christians hoped to visit Rome to honour the tombs and shrines of Christian martyrs who had lived and died since the time of Jesus Christ. (Interestingly enough, MacBeth, the eleventh-century Scottish king who lends his name to William Shakespeare’s play Macbeth, made two pious errands to Rome!) The well-known change of date indicates that All Saints had been a long-established Christian holiday, and that it draws no inspiration from a pagan custom.
Secondly, and more practically. Although it is not required of Christians to venerate the saints (whether living or dead), there is great value in remembering those who have gone before us. Every time I read their writings, correspondences, and prayerful meditations, the more their trials and triumphs seem to resemble my own. These are people to whom we can relate. St. Moses, one of the Desert Monks, was no stoic; he made himself the end of several jokes. St. Cyril of Alexandria was – according to many sources, some of them reliable – “no saint.” Bl. Martin Luther’s own foibles and prejudices are known to us. God saved them all.
Given the Christian Church’s checkered history, many are leary of ancient Christian practices – such as prayers for the departed. The Roman Catholic Church devotes “vigils,” or “wakes,” to praying the Catholic Rosary and other rituals in order that their loved ones may not suffer long in purgatory. Holy Scripture is conspicuously silent on the matter (the Apocryphal Book of 2 Maccabees lacks even an implicit reference to purgatory). But, while belief in purgatory sprang up relatively early, Christians had already been praying for the dead long before ideas about purgation and indulgences were brought into consideration.
Respectable Christian writers commend the pious practices of praying for the departed. Like veneration of heroic saints, praying for those whom we might consider “ordinary” Christians is nowhere commanded in Scripture but does not contradict it either. The leading Lutheran theologian Martin Chemnitz put extensive study into the writings of the ancient Church Fathers in his Examination of the Council of Trent. Luther himself allows: “As for the dead… I regard it as no sin to pray with free devotion in this or some similar fashion: ‘Dear God, if this soul is in a condition accessible to mercy, be thou gracious to it.’ And when this has been done once or twice, let it suffice.” He then proceeds to contrast pious prayers with the Roman Catholic abuses such as vigils, requiem masses, calling them “the devil’s annual fair” (what some, whether rightly or wrongly, consider modern Halloween observances to be).
The Book of Concord condemns the opinion that prayers for the departed are useless. There are two crystal clear clauses in Article XXIV of the Apology of the Augsburg Confession, paragraphs 94 and 96: “We know that the ancients spoke of prayer for the dead. We do not prohibit this, but we do reject the transfer, ex opere operato, of the Lord’s Supper to the dead” (that is, requiem masses); “Epiphanius testifies that Aerius believed that prayers for the dead were useless. This he rejects. We do not support Aerius either.” Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christians should not be allowed to hold monopoly on prayers for the departed!
When it happens that we suddenly receive news of a loved one’s departure, perhaps our first thought isn’t quite: “Now I can never pray for this person again.” But, at some point or another in our Christian grieving process, the disquieting reality sets upon us. Our relationship to this person has changed. He or she is beyond our sight and our direct means of communication. But the faithful departed are still present with us in an unseen way: in the Communion of Saints. Holy Scripture urges us to pray for all people, especially those within the Church; and the Church exists in heaven just as it does on earth. No, their needs are not like ours (though freed from most concerns, they do need their earthly bodies back). They pray for our needs, as Revelation chapter six informs us.
Prayer does not stop once we cross to the other side to eternity. When all believers are resurrected to share in everlasting glory, the new creation will have plenty for which to pray. We will, for instance, continue asking God to “give us this day our daily bread”; and, unlike now when many in our world sadly go hungry, God will invariably answer: “Yes! Plant, pluck, and harvest to your heart’s content.” Prayers, as well, are not only petitionary (asking God for something); they are also given in thanksgiving for blessings already enjoyed! In the Small Catechism under Daily Prayers, there is an underused “Returning Thanks” after eating just below the so-called “Common Table Grace” we know and use so well.
So, while the secular world resounds with its annual litany of: “Trick or treat!” – and, we would hope, gives and receives only the latter – we, the Church, are free to pray: “Grant them Your rest, O Lord, and let the light perpetual shine upon them.” God repilies: “I have so promised them in Holy Baptism, and made the same to you. Depart in peace and joy always.” Amen!
Pastor Heide
