November 1

All Saints

Solemnity · Remembered by Catholics, Anglicans and Lutherans

Honours all God's holy people, the famous and the forgotten

All Saints is the day Christians remember everyone who has lived and died in faith, not only the well-known names on the calendar, but countless people whose holiness nobody wrote down. In the New Testament, “saints” simply means God's holy people, and the feast keeps that wide meaning.

It grew from the early Church's custom of honouring its martyrs. By the late 300s, Christians in the East kept a day for all the martyrs, and the Orthodox still celebrate All Saints on the Sunday after Pentecost. In Rome, around 609, Pope Boniface IV turned the Pantheon, an ancient temple to many gods, into a church dedicated to Mary and all the martyrs. Gregory III, in the 700s, dedicated a chapel in Saint Peter's to all the saints, and in the 800s the 1 November date spread across Western Europe.

Today Catholics, Anglicans, Lutherans and many others keep it as a reminder that holiness belongs to ordinary people too, and that God's family joins the living and the dead.

After this I looked and saw a multitude too large to count, from every nation and tribe and people and tongue, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice: “Salvation to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”

Revelation 7:9–10 · BSB

A prayer

Almighty God, you have gathered a great multitude from every nation into your family, many whose names only you know. We thank you for their faith and love. Give us grace to follow them in our ordinary days, so that one day we may share their joy in your presence. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.