All Saints Day

Today is the Feast of All Saints. Originally meant to commemorate all the superheroes of the faith—the saints of name like Peter and Paul—it has come to be a day for remembering all Christians who have died as we are all saints (even though we don't always act like it).

One story which illuminates All Saints' Day is of the stained-glass windows in Winchester Cathedral

During the civil and religious strife of the Reformation in England, Protestant Roundheads stormed into cathedrals, destroying relgious symbols. In Winchester Cathedral they wrecked a hugh stained glass window which majestically dominated the long catherdral. On the cold stone floor lat fragments of the beautiful colored glass. The shattered pieces, which once had shaped a Rembrandt-like scene, could not be restored to form the originial picture. What could be done? Board up the window? Throw out the glass? With love and care, the people picked up the pieces. Long before the time of abstract art, they leaded the broken glass togetgher with hope and returned it to the round window. Today, 300 years later, the same sun shines through the same beautiful colors of fine stained glass, a kaleidoscope of pieces, rearranged in a different and even more meaningful way.


To me, this is our lives and the church, I would pray. So broken are we in our own lives and in our churches. Yet, somehow with the help of the Spirit, we are picking up the pieces, putting them back together. And maybe God’s light in Christ is still shining somehow through us. We are saints but with broken halos.—Bass Mitchell

Here are three ways to define "saint":

"Saint: a dead sinner revised and edited."—Ambrose Bierce

"A saint is one who makes goodness attractive."—Laurence Housman

"Saints are persons who make it easier for others to believe in God."
—Nathan Soderblom

While the Greek we translate as "saints" in the New Testament means "Holy Ones" it is clear in the Bible that the term saints refers to all Christians.