Fierce Wild Priest

How curious it is that, for centuries, the Church has observed both the Feast of All Saints and the Feast of All Souls.  As I read the New Testament, all saints have souls, and all souls are saints.  Traditionally, however, saints are thought of as those who have gone the extra mile, done the greater thing, suffered the greater humiliation in every age for the sake of Christ.  The rest of us, in that sense, have merely been faithful and grace-filled.

            The explanation in Lesser Feasts and Fasts confirms that all are saints, and states further that All Souls Day came into being as a way that the Church remembered “that vast body of the faithful who, though no less members of members of the company of the redeemed, are unknown in the wiser fellowship of the Church.  It was also a day for particular remembrance of family members and friends.”

            In Morning Prayer, the New Testament reading has been from the Revelation to John.  Recently the passage was from the seventh chapter, in which John witnesses the innumerable souls of the faithful being welcomed into the heavenly place and joining with the twenty-four elders, the four living creatures and the myriads of angels in the work of all creation:  to worship God with unfailing devotion. 

            Maybe I am Protestant at heart in believing that the celebration of all saints is the best and most biblical way to be the Church Expectant.   In almost every church I have served, there has been an All Saints Pageant on the Sunday following the designated day.  Every child “adopted” one of the great saints of the Church and wore an outfit identifying that holy one. 

In one particular congregation, the practical decision was made to include adults in the parade, as the number of children was rather small in that aging group.  The parade was profound—for now it was more than cute—it was real.   The music minister and I decided to put the familiar and traditional hymn “For All the Saints” at the close of the service.  This procession was set to the traditional English children’s hymn, “I Sing a Song of the Saints of God.”

The second verse made it clear that all souls are saints. “They loved their Lord so dear, so dear, and his love made them strong; and the followed the right for Jesus’ sake the whole of their good lives long.”

But the teens in the pageant made a great and deliberate error when some loudly, “And one was a soldier, and one was a beast, and one was slain by a fierce wild priest.”

In the children’s sermon, I faced the music, so to speak.  When I asked them what they thought of the hymn, one of the little ones bellowed, “Are you that fierce wild priest?”  I reflected for a moment and, smiling, I said, “Only when I have to be.”

And then I reminded them—and all who were listening—of the importance of the final words in that verse, words that ought to stick to us in thick and thin:  “And there is not any reason—no, not the least—that I shouldn’t be one, too.”  Sometimes, any of us may need to be fierce and wild in our Christian witness.