All Saints and All Souls Day 2023
All Saints Sunday (November 5) and All Souls Day (November 2) are two of my favorite days in the entire Church year. On these days, we remember the Saints of the Church, those who have trod the way of our faith and our church. These are the Saints who taught and lived and loved and died, and by their example, we glimpse what embodied faith looks like. And on All Souls Day we remember our own beloved dead—the ones we knew and loved, the ones who shaped us into the Christians that we are.
This year we will once again have an All Souls Day Mass where we will remember, in a quiet and intimate candlelit service, those whom we love but see no longer. On this day, we light a candle for those we love who have died within the past 12 months. If someone dear to you has died in the past year, and you would like to remember them by lighting a candle, please give us their name via this form. We will also have a luminary for them in the Memorial Garden. For All Saints Day, Christian Education will take place at 9:00 AM, followed by a combined service at 10:00 AM. We have many baptisms set for this day and it should be glorious. And we’ll continue some of our beloved traditions. After the service, we will go outside and remember and bless all those souls who are buried in our Memorial Garden, followed by Sup with the Saints. Gathered in and around the Memorial Garden with simple picnic food, lawn chairs and wonderful conversations, we will feast with the Saints. Jubilate will play during the picnic, so come prepared to sing and enjoy music, friends and community. Here’s where I really need your help. I’d like us to go out into our community—both the community around St. Catherine’s and in your own communities—neighborhoods, schools, book groups—wherever you find community. As is our tradition, we’re creating simple, colorful paper flags that will invite people both in and outside of St. Catherine’s to remember their beloved dead. These colorful paper flags will then adorn the Nave, our worship space, for All Saints. Joining with all the Saints—past, present and yet to come, will be the reminder of those whom we love, and those whom our community loves, but we see no longer. So how can you be part of this? We would love a couple of leaders to help us get out into the community around Holt Road. This is the brave and bold work of knocking on doors, not expecting a thing, but offering the hospitality and care of St. Cat’s to our neighbors. If you are interested in being a Team Lead, please send me an email (Sarah@stcatherines.org) or give me a call at 770-971-2839. Bill Ivey (facilities@stcatherines.org) is heading up the effort of displaying the paper flags in the church. If you’d like to be part of his team, please reach out to him. The Daughters of the King has graciously agreed to head up our Sup with the Saints Feast! If you can help with set up, clean up or serving, please contact Carla Von Hoffman (cvhbuggie@aol.com) and Lynn Sapp(lcsapp111@aol.com). Lastly, we could use help both before and close to All Saints. We will make a luminary for each person who dwells in our Memorial Garden. We can use helpers to both make the bags, and helpers to set them out on the afternoon of Nov 1st. If you can help with either of those projects, please contact Rachel at Rachel@stcatherines.org. With hope, let us raise the glad strain, alleluia! Sarah+