For all the saints . . .

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St. Julian Ukrainian Catholic Church near Rosthern
For all the saints who from their labours rest,
Who Thee by faith before the world confess,
Thy name, O Jesus, be forever blest,
Alleluia! Alleluia!
Thou wast their Rock, their Fortress, and their Might;
Thou, Lord, their Captain in the well-fought fight;
Thou, in the darkness drear, their one true Light.
Alleluia! Alleluia!
(Click HERE and play while you read. Or not, as you wish.)

Today is All Saints Sunday. Pastor Charles reminded us in his sermon here at Hively Mennonite that we are all part of a “cloud of witnesses” who have courageously gone before us or walk beside us and others who will carry the torch after us. It's a consciousness we often neglect, the sense that we are both sheltered and challenged by the “saints” who uncompromisingly put their faith into practice in whatever time and place they find themselves. 

There were stories of Christians of the past who gave everything they had to be salt and light to the world around them, who never considered their lives saintly, but who simply did what the example of Jesus urged them to do.

It's an age of individualism, but that's not news to any of us. “My way or the highway,” however, has no precedents in the Gospel nor in the witness of our Anabaptist “saints.” Whether we excel at being arms, legs, eyes, ears or mouths, we are part of one body; not recognizing this can turn the witness of the saints to chaff. 

For all the saints is probably my all time favourite hymn tune and we sang it robustly here at Hively. We made new friends and were greeted by some we hadn't seen in years. Beside us in the pew a wonderful lady who told us she is also an Epp and a lovely lady in front of us who told us she, too, had once been an Epp of the Nebraska variety and we very easily (and very soon) gained the feeling that whether in Indiana, Nebraska, Ontario or Saskatchewan, we are all inhabitants of a great cloud of witnesses, the community of “saints.” 
 
“Listen to me, you that pursue righteousness,
you that seek the Lord.
Look to the rock from which you were hewn,
and to the quarry from which you were dug.”
Isaiah 51:1 

The quarry from which I was dug was Judeo-Christian, Gospel diverted, Anabaptist hewn, Mennonite labelled, Eigenheim sheltered. I can't deny it, I was born into a cloud of wonder, a community of saints. 

What cloud do you recognize, and what saints are you most indebted to? 



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