All the Saints

We have celebrated and will continue to remember All Saints Day and Reformation Day this week. And it is important to remember that these two holidays are not at odds with one another. It is not an accident that Luther posted his theses when he did. The Protestant Reformation was a cry for the saints, a plea for the priesthood of the plebians, the commoners. And while we are fully aware of how the church has splintered and fragmented over the centuries since, we must remain ever grateful for the faithfulness of a few men who would not back down from what the Scriptures taught. Nevertheless we must also remember the desire of the first reformers, the first protestants, to be catholic. They were not rejecting the catholic church, far from it. They were making all the ruckus because it had become clear that the Roman church had rejected the catholic church. This is what All Saints is; this is what Reformation Day celebrates: the cross of Jesus Christ, the atoning death of the one sacrifice which accomplished the forgiveness of sins and the salvation of the world, without which there is no catholic church; this is the ancient Christian faith once for all delivered to all the saints.