All Saints/All Souls Day

This Sunday is our Feast of Title, All Saints/All Souls Day. During the 9 & 11:15 services names of those who have died in this past year will be prayed for and inside the church a Cloud of Witnesses art installation will be hung with names of those who have died. To add a name to the Cloud of Witnesses, please fill out this form or use the clipboards in the Narthex on Sunday.

We’ll also have a potluck meal between the 9 & 11:15 services in the new Jordan Court courtyard as well as tours of Jordan Court available. For the potluck, please bring your favorite dish from someone you have loved but see no longer. You are also welcome to add a note about the dish and about your loved one, if you wish.

Special Message from Phil:

In the Episcopal and Anglican traditions we name our churches. Sometimes we name them after people, like St. Paul’s Church (after the 1st century super apostle from Tarsus), or St. Mary’s Church (after the mother of Jesus), or St. Anna’s Church (after the 19th century deaconess, teacher and church planter from Georgia). Sometimes we name them after qualities of God, like Church of the Redeemer, or Church of the Holy Comforter. And sometimes we name them after theological truths, like Grace Church, or the Church of the Incarnation. This naming becomes part of the identity of the congregation, and often the truth or quality of that attribute or life story becomes an essential part of the story of the people who come worship there, decades and centuries later.

This is true for us as well, ever since we began as All Souls Chapel in 1906, a church plant from St. Mark’s, Berkeley on the south side of campus. When we were planted as an expression of God’s embrace of all the departed souls, it made an imprint on who we would become, as later witnessed in the words of Ezekiel 18 on the back wall of the nave. And it has also meant that our feast of title, our day to lean into who or what we’ve been named after, would be November 2nd, the feast of All Souls.

Over the years we’ve learned that the best way to celebrate this feast has been to transfer it to the Sunday of All Saints, effectively making it the Feast of All Saints & All Souls. This Sunday is one that I always look forward to––there are often baptisms, and we always pull out all the stops. I also look forward to it because it is one of the more tender, heart-filled Sundays of the year. Each year we have found different ways to engage in the Christian practice of re-membering with the souls and saints of the past, those we have loved and see no longer.

We will be doing this again on Sunday, this time by hanging ribbons in the nave with the names of those dear to us. If you have already submitted those names, they will be up on Sunday, and if you haven’t yet, you’ll have the opportunity to write them when you come to church, as our prayers and remembrance of these cloud of witnesses will be with us for the next several weeks.

But that is not all. Because on this feast day we will also be feasting and celebrating in two powerful ways. One is that we will be eating food together, sharing the dishes that loved ones have handed down to us. If you would like to share a dish, either bring it to the 9am service or in time for our All Saints and All Souls feast in the Jordan Courtyard.

“Wait, what?,” you may be asking. “The Jordan Courtyard? Really?” Yes, friends, this Sunday, on our feast of title, we will also be having an open house in Jordan Court to see the spaces that we have been dreaming about and working towards for over six years. If you are coming to the 9am service, we will be heading over to Jordan Court immediately following the service. If you are coming to the 11:15am service, please head to the entrance by All Souls courtyard to learn the best path to the Jordan Courtyard. After signing liability waivers (the site is still not quite finished), we will share a few words, some delicious food, and visit the offices, All Souls apartments, a studio, and the terraces of Jordan Court until 11:10a, when we head back to the church for the 11:15am service, including three baptisms!

But wait, there’s more! Because this Sunday evening at 5pm will also officially mark the launch of the Sunday Night Service, a new weekly community of All Souls. This is the service that Emily Hansen Curran, Maggie Foote, Dan Carlson, and a core group have been working on for over a year, and I am very excited to see this new expression of All Souls begin.

So come one, come all. In the morning in the courtyard, for elevensies at Jordan Court, for baptisms at midday, for a new community in the evening. Come to remember those we love, come share life with each other, come to feast together.

Peace,

Phil+