All Soul's Day 1997

Growing up Southern Baptist, I received a deluge of mis-information and dis-information about Catholicism. We were told that Catholics taught salvation by works and that they esteemed the bread and wine to be the actual, physical body and blood of Christ.

As you can imagine, when I went away to college an actually started attending an Anglo-Catholic parish and studying Catholic theology, I was quite surprised at just how many things I had been taught about Catholics which were patently untrue. And of course, being the sort of person who processes out loud, I reported my findings to anyone on the California Baptist College campus who would listen to me.

I see now the dubious wisdom of such spoutings, but I felt it was somehow my sacred duty to dispel the errant notions of my Baptist brethren. So one afternoon I was hanging out in the No Exit, the coffee shop on campus run by the radicals and intellectuals who made up my circle of friends, spouting off about various mistaken notions of Catholic practice and belief, when my friend Kerry broke into the conversation, saying, "I just can't get over how Catholics worship Mary and the saints."

This, of course, is a common misconception, and so I abandoned our previous topic and met Kerry's challenge. "Well," I said, "They don't, in fact, WORSHIP them." Now I am willing to admit that in popular practice, especially amongst the poorly educated, there is perhaps little difference between veneration and worship, but I certainly wasn't prepared to concede this at the time.

"Of course they worship them," Kerry retorted, "They pray to them, don't they?"

"Yes," I answered, "but 'prayer to' is not the same as 'worship of'."

She gave me a confused look, as if I had just turned into waxed paper, or gelatin.

It occurred to me then that the two ideas were inseparable in her mind, because Baptists, and in fact, most Protestants in general, just don't pray to anyone but God. I then endeavored to make clear the distinction.

"Is it a sin," I asked, "to talk to someone on the telephone?"

"Of course not!" she snapped.

"And is the person person you are talking to physically present with you?"

"No," she answered.

"And is it a sin to ask that person, who is not physically present, to pray for you?"

"No," she repeated.

"In fact, isn't it a very GOOD thing to do, to call your friend and solicit their prayers?" I asked.

"Yes," she agreed.

Confident that we had gotten this far, I pressed her further. "Do you believe that the dead in Christ are alive and in heaven?"

"Yes," she said.

"And are those folks who have died in Christ awake and conscious of what is going on down here on earth?"

"I....think so..." said uncertainly.

"Well," I continued, "let's say you do, since this is the historic teaching of the church. And let's say you had a very great friend who you know cared a lot about you. Let's say this person died, and presumably, went to heaven."

"Okay," she stayed with me, but we were both aware that she was granting me a lot.

"And let's say," I continued, "that you were going through a really difficult, trying time. In the past, you would have called your friend on the phone and asked her to pray for you; but now your friend has gone on to her reward. So what I want to ask you is this: What's wrong with asking her to pray for you now?"

"Huh?" I could tell she was a little stunned.

"In the past," I clarified, You would have picked up the telephone and asked your friend, who is not physically present, to pray for you. So if your friend in heaven is conscious of you and cares about you, and can pray to God on your behalf, what's the harm in asking?"

After a long pause, she said, "I...I have to thing about this..." and she left for her next class.

I ask you here this morning to think about it as well. The Christian tradition has for many centuries taught the august doctrine of the "Communion of Saints," the assembled host of all of the believers who have gone before us and now reside in God's glorious presence. The church teaches us that all of these "saints" are alive, awake and aware of us; and not only that but they are up there rooting for us, rejoicing in our victories, and grieving with us over our sorrows. And most especially, praying for us every moment of every day.

This is an appealing teaching that rarely gets much attention nowadays; and yet it is one which could provide much support and comfort for people in their times of loneliness or distress. It also is congruent with the experience of many who have lost loved ones and yet still feel that an intimate connection or bond with their loved ones persists.

In pre-Christian Britain, the predecessor to All Soul's was the festival of Samhain, which celebrated at the Autumnal equinox, a time when the veil between the worlds was particularly thin. When Britain was Christianized, it became a time when folks felt particularly close to those who had passed on, and celebrated their diseased with special prayers and masses for the dead.

Now, in the Catholic tradition, prayer to the dead is a two-way street. Just as they can pray for us, so we are able to pray to God for their welfare as well. I remember being told as a child that it was ridiculous to pray for someone who had died since their salvation was dependent solely upon their own acceptance of Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. This has been the opinion held by many Protestants.

Part of the Roman Catholic counter-reformation, in fact, involved the addition of the Apocrypha to the canon of scripture. One reason this was done was that prayer for the dead is supported by a scene in one of the Book of the Maccabees. Since Protestants by and large rejected the practice, the addition of such books to the Bible helped support Rome's practice. (At least, it seemed to be the thing to do at the time.)

Anglicans are, of course, both Catholic and Protestant. We have retained the Apocrypha, although we assign it to a separate place all its own in our Bibles. Typically, Anglicans take "the middle path" in these matters. Unlike some other Protestants, we don't agree that salvation is an open and closed book decided entirely by our actions on earth. The ambiguous nature of Anglican theology allows for a wideness in God's mercy, and an acknowledgment that the Mystery of God's workings in our lives and in our deaths is greater than our power to understand, and certainly beyond our right to legislate it. So although we cannot say that prayer for the dead absolutely helps those who have gone before us, we also acknowledge that it can do no harm, and certainly it is healthy to remember them in our prayers for our own sake. And though we do not make prayer for the dead obligatory, we do make a habit of it at least once a year.

So I invite you today, at this special time of the year when the death of leaves and flowers is in the air, when the sun is weakened, the chill is greater, and the veil between the worlds is thin, to reach out to friends and loved ones who have gone before. The intimate communion you once shared is not gone, only changed. Perhaps it will not help them if you pray for them; perhaps it will not help to ask them to pray for you, but it cannot hurt, either. And maybe, with a little faith, it can make all the difference in the world.

All I ask is that you think about it, just as my friend Kerry thought about the all-too novel idea of praying to the saints. By the way, she did think about it, long and hard, and soon after she became confirmed as an Episcopalian, she was teaching the youth group at St. George's Episcopal Church in Riverside, CA; leading them in their own prayers for the dead on All Soul's Day.

Let us pray.

God of the living and the dead,
whose mercy extends to this and every other world;
we come before you as one small part
of the great host known as the church,
whose members praise your name
both in earth and heaven;
hear our prayers for those who have gone before us,
granting them rest and true fulfillment;
and likewise we ask you to hear and heed
their earnest prayer for us,
keeping us safe and growing our souls
as we journey through this life and the next,
for we ask this in the name of the one who
gives us hope of resurrection and everlasting life,
even Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns
with you and the Holy Spirit,
ever one God, one God, now and forever. Amen.