"After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands.
They cried out in a loud voice, saying, "Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!" And all the angels stood around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, singing, "Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.
Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, "Who are these, robed in white, and where have they come from?" I said to him, "Sir, you are the one that knows." Then he said to me, "These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. For this reason they are before the throne of God, and worship him day and night within his temple, and the one who is seated on the throne will shelter them.
They will hunger no more, and thirst no more; the sun will not strike them, nor any scorching heat; for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes." -Revelation 7:9-17
Several years ago, I returned back to my hometown of Pittsburgh, PA for All Saints Day to hear my father's name read as among the saints who had died in the past year at my home church. It was a blessing to gather with my family and mourn and remember my father. This was only a week after the tragic shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh and this All Saints Day felt especially poignant as the whole city mourned.
This year, All Saints Day feels similar as the coronavirus pandemic has caused so much death around the world. The loss and grief are magnified even more as 1.18 million people around the world have passed away from Covid-19. In many churches, there will be more names read than usual. The nearness of extreme loss and death is new for many. How can our rituals capture the overwhelming loss of life we have seen globally?
But the image of the saints in Revelations 7 is not one of grieve but of triumph.
Memory makes space for both – for grief and joy, loss and triumph. For this reason, on All Saints Day, we practice memory. As we light candles, we remember the saints in our lives that have left us. We tell stories of the saints, those that have shaped our faith and those whose ancient stories inspire us. We sing hymns of their strength, faithfulness, and resilience.
In her novel Housekeeping, Marilynne Robinson writes beautifully about the power of memory:
"There is so little to remember of anyone – an anecdote, a conversation at table. But every memory is turned over and over again, every word, however chance, written in the heart in the hope that memory will fulfill itself, and become flesh, and that the wanderers will find a way home, and the perished, whose lack we always feel, will step through the door finally and stroke our hair with dreaming habitual fondness, not having meant to keep us waiting long."[1]
Memory is powerful. It is imaginative work that can make the memories of saints and loved ones lost just as palpable as the grief we feel. Memory generates fondness and comfort while simultaneously making space for grief and loss.
I pray that on this All Saints Day, our rituals help us practice memory so that we can grieve loss and remember life.
Written by Grace Killian, Connectional Table Intern
[1] Marilynne Robinson, Housekeeping (New York, NY: Picador, 2004), 195.