Who Are These Saints?

Monday, November 2, 2026

Happy Monday, my friends! Yesterday was All Saints Day and today is All Souls Day. The author of the Letter to the Hebrews tells us, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God” (12:1-2 NRSVUE). While this passage often stands on its own, it’s better understood in the context that the Letter has just spent the entirety of chapter 11 discussing models of faith in the Hebrew Bible including Abraham, Abel, Enoch, Noah, Moses, and “other Israelite heroes.”[1] We could insert many other names from the history of our own faith.

Halloween, All Saints Day, and All Souls Day form an interesting autumnal triduum of sorts and a time I’ve always felt as deeply spiritual. What we in the United States call “Halloween” is thought by some historians to be a Christian and later definitely a commercial coopting of the traditional pagan feast of Samhain (pronounced “sowen”). This was the time when the veil between the world of the living and the world to come was the thinnest and when the living could commune with their ancestors. In its better moments, All Hallows’ Eve (“Halloween”) was the vigil before All Saints Day when people would gather to remember and pray for their holy ancestors before celebrating the ones officially recognized as saints and then, the following day, the ones who had died holy deaths.

In its later associations with the devil and Satan and subsequent commercialization to sell candy and overpriced costumes, Halloween lost many of its associations with ancestors and “the great cloud of witnesses” mentioned in Hebrews. Christianity, for its part, deemphasized almost all connections with our holy, but uncanonized forebearers. Yes, you can and should carry their memory, but instead of considering the holiness of your ancestors you should look to and pray for the intercession of a recognized saint. In far too many cases, Christian regimes violently outlawed the veneration of anyone other than the church’s approved cult of saints.

Thankfully, contemporary movements in and beyond the church are reclaiming this important part of our shared histories. Don’t move too quickly over that word, “shared.” While we might associate ancestor veneration with certain ethnic or racial groups (in the United States it’s often portrayed in African and East Asian cultures, for example), this form of spirituality is among the oldest across all of humanity. Some of the earliest considerations for communities, even among creatures we call “animals” today, are death, the disposition of the dead, grief, and what, if any, agency or existence the dead maintain after death. In some sense, one could say that our spiritualities and religions are built on our understandings of death and those who go before us.

So, who are these saints, who are among “the great cloud of witnesses?” They are all the people who have gone before us. The ones whose names we know and the ones whose memories have been kept from us because of time, the forces of empire, or our tangled and sometimes messy family stories. But the saints aren’t just the dead, the saints are us too. To quote a song from All Saints Days past, “Be a saint! Yes, grow to be a saint! Then I know you’re there with your wonderful care. It’s a season for being a saint.”[2]

Who are the saints to you? Who are the saints you’ve known?

Let us pray: God, make us saints.

Make us saints for one another.

Make us saints for the people we love.

Make us saints for the people with whom we struggle.

Make us saints for people who are hurting.

Make us saints for people who are joyous.

Make us saints for people the world loves.

Make us saints for people the world hates.

Make us saints when we want to be saints.

Make us saints when we want to be anything else.

Make us saints because we have the capacity to be saints.

Make us saints because we are sinners.

God, make us saints.

Amen.

Blessings on your weeks, my friends! Please let me know if there’s anything I can do for you.

Faithfully,

Ben +

[1] “The Faith of Other Israelite Heroes” is the title the NRSVUE appends between verse 28 and verse 29.

[2] Try as I might, I couldn’t find this song and who to credit with the music or lyrics. I learned it 30+ years ago in Catholic school. Does anyone know who wrote it?

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