My Parents were Saints!

Last Sunday Lutheran churches took note of 499th anniversary of the date that the Protestant Reformation was launched by Martin Luther, meaning we are entering a year to commemorate the 500 years of the reformation.  Luther intentionally chose the eve of All Saints Day to nail those 95 thesis to the church door at Wittenburg to begin a discussion of needed reforms in the Catholic Church.    How wonderful it was to read that yesterday Pope Francis traveled to largely Lutheran (but secular) Sweden with the main goal of to help mend a rift dating back five centuries.

Then yesterday millions in the US, and now around the world "celebrated" Halloween with all its symbolism of death and spirits of the dark.  Originally, in the Christian tradition, it was a remembering of the dead, including saints (hallows), martyrs, and all the faithful departed.  It seems to me that few of those who don costumes of ghosts and other phantoms to appear scary and go out to trick and treat these days would even know of this traditional connection. 

So today, November 1, is the actual All Souls' (or Saints) Day, an important Christian religious day that is dedicated to the remembrance of the departed. Celebrated under various names in different nations, this is an occasion that testifies to the fact that death can never lessen the love we have for our dear departed ones.

On a personal level, this is the time of year that brings to mind the passing of my parents…  they died just before All Saints Day, though separated by 15 years  - mom passed on October 21st, 1976, and dad on October 25th, 1991.

Over these last decades this time of the year has been for me a time of remembrance of those two saints as well as All Saints who have gone before..… knowing that we are eternally connected, not only to our loved ones who we now enjoy and are still with us, but more importantly today, with  those who are with us in eternity.  At the age of 78 I know that in a few short years I will be joining that "Great Host arrayed in White" as they are referred to in the Book of Revelation.  

Mom and dad died of cancer and they both suffered quite a bit in their last months of life…  but I believe they both knew who they were and Who's they were throughout their lives and at the end of it all.  

They were saints.. not in the way the Catholic Church understands Sainthood, but as Luther taught it… saints and sinners… redeemed by the blood of Christ..  just ordinary farmers, ordinary saints, salt of the earth….  And remembered by a few of us today..