You may know that tomorrow is the Feast of All Saints. It’s one of the easiest dates to memorize in the church year, in large part because it falls on the day after the Eve of All Saints’, also known as All Hallows’ Eve or, in some quarters, Hallowe’en. (You all spell it with the apostrophe… right?)

Halloween, of course, is a major holiday in our secular year, but it stays true to its ecclesiastical origins. While it’s veered off a bit in recent years, Halloween still fits in recognizably with the sequence of All Saints’ on November 1 followed by All Souls’ Day on the 2nd, a day on which we commemorate all those who have died. In the church, All Saints is a major holiday too, a significant enough day that, unlike other, lesser feasts, we tend to celebrate it on the Sunday following, in addition to our celebrations during the week.

And so it is that most years, on the first Sunday in November, you’ll often find yourself standing in church, singing the beautiful hymn, “For all the saints.”

It’s a beloved hymn, and one that sums up the Episcopal or Anglican attitude to the saints fairly well, I think. Take a read through the first verse:

For all the saints, who from their labors rest,
who thee by faith before the world confessed,
thy Name, O Jesus, be forever blessed.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

There are a few things worth observing here:

It’s worth saying, first of all, that the “saints” are not just some specific set of especially-holy people. “Saints,” in this hymn or anywhere else in our church, doesn’t refer to a canonical set. We use “saints” in the Biblical sense, as when St. Paul addresses a letter “to the saints who are in Ephesus” (Eph. 1:1). The saints are all the “holy people of God,” living and dead, and that’s not only St. Paul or St. Monica or St. Martin Luther King, Jr.—that’s you, and me, and your Aunt Joan who first brought you to church when you were young.

Like any good hymn, this is a prayer. But it isn’t a prayer to the saints. It doesn’t address the saints, asking for their help or prayers. It’s always fine to ask a friend for prayer, living or departed, but we don’t need their help; we can address our words directly to God.

And while we begin with the words “For all the saints,” this hymn isn’t a prayer for all the saints. We aren’t asking for their prayers; but neither are we offering our prayers for them. It can comfort us to pray for those whom we have loved and lost; it certainly can’t hurt, in any case. But this is not a prayer for them; it’s not a prayer for God to give them something good or save them from something bad.

Instead, it’s a prayer of thanksgiving and wonder. “For all the saints who from their labors rest…thy name, O Jesus be forever blessed.”

The history of the world, and of each one of our lives, has been full of holy people. They were people, still, and therefore imperfect. But they were, and they are, holy people, people who have inspired us to be the best, most loving versions of ourselves. Some of them are famous. Some of them are completely unknown. But all of them have left their mark on our lives.

Sometimes we might ask them for their prayers, and be comforted by the reminder that we share some mysterious, ongoing relationship with our ancestors and departed friends. Sometimes we might pray for them, putting words to our yearning for them to be at peace. And this day—on All Saints’ Day—we can simply offer thanks to God that they lived, and bless God for creating a world that has such people in it.