As November begins, and everything around us begins to whisper, and then to shout, to us about “the holidays,” the church asks us instead to pause and think of other things, some serious things that are, paradoxically, joyous as well. On All Saints’ Day, we give thanks for those men and women who are now, we believe, in the nearer presence of God, women and men who lived lives that seem to us to be especially holy, heroic, virtuous, beautiful, or inspiring. Though every saint is unique—that is part of the saints’ attraction—they all seem to be Christlike, embodiments of the Presence of God, bridges between the hard, rough challenges of everyday life and the unseen, hoped-for peace of life eternal.
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