Sunday Reflection with Fr Robin Gibbons: 1st November - All Saints

All Saints and All Souls are a diptych, that is two haves of a whole, one proclaims with joy the vision of God and the Kingdom, the other that unknown element of deep humility where we acknowledge our hope in the saving power of the Lord.

The feast of All Saints is ours too, because our Christian vocation is simply a call to holiness, which, if you'll excuse the analogy, is a call to real 'wholeness'!

The Holy Spirit builds up the community of God's Kingdom by enabling us to follow the Gospel way, loving God and our neighbour, by helping us seek the living risen Christ, who is our true compass in this life, and in finding him, loving him. Those whom we recognize as saints in a more formal way only stand for all of us on that road of discipleship.

I love that image from the book of Revelation, '...a huge number, impossible to count, of every nation, race, tribe and language'. This links to another great image from Hebrews 12 of the 'great cloud of witnesses' that surround us, that is all those who have run the race of faith before us and who are there even now, surrounding us, almost as if they are a huge crowd cheering us on having already inspired us to 'go for it'!
It used to be a custom, and I hope still is, that when we were baptized we received a Christian name> I've often said to those brought to baptism that these saints we are named for have a special relationship with us, they are very definitely 'our' friends. The Church encourages this, and that is why we ask the saints to help us, not because they have special powers that alone belong to God but because they have a relationship with us that transcends death.

You may have your own favourite saints and there might be some that you don't like, that doesn't matter, but perhaps on this feast you ought to get to know your own patron saints. Then of course there are the saints who seem to find you, seek you out as it were. In my own life there have been several, Colette, Benedict Francis, the Cure of Ars and Frideswide of Oxford, but above all Our Lady St Mary. These are the ones who are your special friends, who show us we are all God's children and belong together now and always!

Editor's Note: Very sad news. Fr Robin's mother, Elizabeth Marie Jeanne Theresa Morwenna Gibbons ( Nee Brookes), died suddenly last Sunday. Please pray for her and all the family. And thank you very much Fr Robin for still writing the Sunday Reflection at what must be an extremely difficult time!