All Saints’ Day (Year C) — Hope, Inheritance, and Holy Love

All Saints’ Day (1 November) is a principal feast of the Christian year, kept with special emphasis in Anglican traditions like the Church of England. It celebrates the whole communion of saints—named and unnamed—who lived and died in Christ, giving thanks for their witness and asking God to shape our lives after theirs. In Anglican practice, it often includes readings, hymns, and prayers that remember faithful believers across centuries and cultures, and it pairs naturally with All Souls’/the Commemoration of the Faithful Departed (2 November) as the church prays in hope of the resurrection and the kingdom of God.

All Saints’ Day — Year C

Hope, Inheritance, and the Call to Holy Love

Remembering the great cloud of witnesses and leaning into a kingdom-shaped life: humble, hopeful, courageous, and radically loving.

Lectionary: Daniel 7:1–3, 15–18; Psalm 149; Ephesians 1:11–23; Luke 6:20–31 Date: Nov 1, 2025 Season after Pentecost

Daniel 7:1–3, 15–18 — The Holy Ones Will Inherit the Kingdom

Daniel’s night visions roil with wind-tossed seas and strange beasts. Yet amid the turbulence comes a steady promise: “the holy ones of the Most High shall receive the kingdom and possess the kingdom forever—forever and ever.”

The saints aren’t spared turmoil; they are sustained through it.
God’s sovereignty doesn’t erase history’s conflict—it guarantees its end in God’s reign.

Psalm 149 — A New Song in the Assembly

“Sing to the LORD a new song… in the assembly of the faithful.” This is communal praise, embodied worship—dancing, tambourine, and lyre—and a reminder that God delights in the humble.

The psalm’s hard lines about judgment voice longing for God’s justice amid oppression.
In Christ, judgment and mercy meet: setting right what sin has set wrong.

Ephesians 1:11–23 — Our Inheritance and Christ’s Headship

In Christ we are sealed with the Spirit and pledged an inheritance. Our hearts are enlightened to know hope, riches, and the “immeasurable greatness” of God’s power—the same power that raised Christ and seated him far above every power.

Saints are marked not by perfectionism, but by the Spirit’s seal.
Our inheritance is present participation in resurrection power, not only future rescue.
The church is Christ’s body—his fullness because he fills us with himself.

Luke 6:20–31 — Blessedness, Woes, and the Way of Love

The Beatitudes reorient our values: the poor, hungry, grieving, and reviled are called blessed, while the comfortable are warned. Sainthood looks like cruciform love—“Love your enemies, do good, bless, pray, turn the other cheek, give, and do to others as you would have them do to you.”

Holiness is cross-shaped love, not cultural admiration.
Through the saints, God’s surprising mercy becomes visible in a hard world.

Living All Saints’ Today

Remember: Name and give thanks for those who revealed Christ to you.

Rejoice: Sing the new song—let gratitude resist despair.

Receive: Ask for “a spirit of wisdom and revelation” to see your hope afresh.

Respond: Practice the Beatitudes—give, forgive, pray for an enemy, choose humility.

A Prayer for All Saints’ Day

God of the living and the dead, we bless you for the saints who have run the race before us. Enlighten the eyes of our hearts, that we may know the hope to which you call us, the riches of our inheritance among the saints, and the immeasurable greatness of your power in Christ. Make us a people of the Beatitudes—poor in spirit yet rich in love, hungry for righteousness and filled with mercy, courageous in suffering and steadfast in joy—until, with all your holy ones, we share your kingdom forever and ever. Amen.

May God, who delights in the humble, adorn you with victory and a new song.

All Saints’ Day — Year C · Nov 1, 2025

Hope, Inheritance, and the Call to Holy Love