Necessary Roughness

Also they teach that one holy Church is to continue forever. The Church is the congregation of saints, in which the Gospel is rightly taught and the Sacraments are rightly administered. — AC VII, 1

Although the Church properly is the congregation of saints and true believers… — AC VIII, 1

Most of the time when we speak of saints we speak of dead people: Gospel and Epistle writers, church fathers, favorite mentors, and relatives. The Augsburg Confession speaks also in terms of the living, as does multiple Epistles. The proper invocation of saints is not in asking the dead for help, but the living. And help us they do, in ordinary ways through ordinary means.

Thus we are also the saints in Christ, who end up answering prayers and helping people through the situations we are placed in, who are zealous for what is good (1 Peter 3:13).

Sometimes it seems we are quite a bad lot. We can’t stop sinning. We don’t even know what we should be praying for (Romans 8:26). Yet we have the faith, acquired in Baptism and strengthened by hearing the Word and participating in the Lord’s Supper. We obtain the knowledge of what is truly good, and we desire to share that with everyone else. We do things because we know it is the right thing to do, with a conscience informed by the Word.

Sunday, many churches will participate in the tradition of reading the names of those who have deceased in the last year. Their work is done. They cannot add to the list of deeds done in Christ. We still have work to do. We commemorate the dead but serve the living. Their stories give us hope, so that we can draw lessons from them. The Feast of All Saints, like a good funeral, is not done for the dead but the living.

I wish you a blessed All Saints’ Day.