Homily preached by Anne M. Watkins

St. Paul’s on the Green, Norwalk, Connecticut

All Souls Day - November 2, 2007

As we commemorate this All Souls Day – or the Day of All Faithful Departed – I want to spend just a few moments looking at some history, some customs and, hopefully, some of its relevance to us in our day. To begin with a little history and some customs we turn to Celtic practice and tradition.

Many, if not most of the traditions of this time of year can be traced back to Samhain (sow-en), the ancient Celtic New Year. Samhain translates to mean the "end of summer," and occurred around the end of October as weather patterns began to turn cold. As you recall, the Celtic people came together as a society around 800 B.C. They were keepers of sheep and cattle which meant that they spent the milder parts of the year in highland pastureland. When the weather got colder, the shepherds brought their animals down from the hills to closer pastures. This shift changed daily life significantly. People stayed close to home and its interior activities, spending more time together. At its heart then, Samhain was an observance of all the important things and shifts that were happening during this change of seasons. Samhain also marked the final harvest of the year, when the fruits of the earth were gathered in to provide life during the cold, dark winter. This notion is easy to relate to since we know firsthand that harvest is an event commemorated by festivals in many cultures, not the least of which is our own. Celtic tradition held that turning points - times when things change from one state to another - had magical properties and Samhain marked the biggest turning point of the year; a change in the weather as well as a shift in everybody's lives.

So what does this have to do with death and souls – this harvest-time and the gathering in of life?

When you and I think of death, I wonder if we don’t think of it as rather the ultimate turning point? And in spite of our hope in faith, our culture treats this ultimate turning point of death as something to hold beneath the surface of our lives. Even our language belies our hesitancy and discomfort in speaking of death. We might say that someone has “passed” or that we have “lost” someone dear to us rather than speak the word of death. Yet, the Celts believed this magical time opened up a sort of connection to the dead. They believed the world of the living was closest to the world of the dead at this time of Samhain and that the spirits of the dead traveled again among the living.

Similar beliefs and customs are found in the culture of Mexico – where these last days: All Hallow’s Eve, All Saints Day, and All Souls Day form a three-day period of festival and celebration called: los dias de los muertas (the days of the dead). Like the Celts, central to these holy days is the belief that our deceased relatives return to the land of the living. It is seen as a time of great celebration. One custom around these beliefs is that these souls come home to partake and sit at the table with us once more. In Mexico and, I suspect, among Mexican immigrants here, it is common to create a teaming table adorned with special foods – thought to be consumed spiritually by the deceased and then consumed practically by the living.

But, again, what does any of this have to do with us and our faith? I invite you to keep two themes in mind as we consider this: first, the theme of “saint” that these days lift up in Christian practices and second, to hold aloft that image of the table – adorned with special foods.

For the Church, All Souls became a kind of extension of All Saints Day. Whereas All Saints celebrates all the elect – that great company – who are examples to us, practically speaking many of names spoken were the more famous among the Saints. And so, a second commemoration – with its focus on “all the faithful departed” -- those whose names are perhaps known to us alone -- was instituted building on the monastic practices of commemorating those brothers in their local communities who had died.

And so we do likewise, naming those among us have died. It is perhaps most fitting that besides naming them, what we do on this special night of remembrance for those closest to us who have died and are gone from our view, is to gather at a table adorned with special food. We have in this bread and wine the body and blood of Jesus, the One who is the source of our hope and faith that death is a turning point – but not an end point.

These faithful departed whom we remember tonight are the largely unknown Saints; the ones who gave us our most intimate, most personal, most lasting examples. They are the parents, grandparents, siblings, spouses, the partners, children and friends who taught us, and who shared with us, and who were examples for us.

These faithful departed ones are those who, though gone from our sight, are not gone from our hearts.

These faithful departed ones are those with whom we share the life-giving meal of Eucharist whenever we come to table together: they on food rich with marrow and wines strained clear and we on the body and blood of He who, in love and from love, breaks the hold death has on any of us.

This is a night when we are particularly reminded of just how thin the veil is between life and death. It is a night when the thinness of that veil reminds us that each of us will face death – that great equalizer – and it is a night that helps us focus on the lessons around life’s priorities received from these saints, these faithful departed – whether they taught them to us in a series of well-placed priorities or whether their example and teaching came more from misplaced ones. Either way, they give us great gifts.

It is a night when the thinness of that veil offers us the continued hope that we are not so far from them afterall, nor they from us. And it is a night to rejoice in the knowledge that though we may feel their loss, much more, in Christ, we feel their gain and their eternal presence.