All Souls of the Faithful

All Saints Day is a festival, a time for rejoicing in the victory of the saints, all those who have been “the choice vessels of [God’s] grace, and the lights of the world in their several generations”, whose example of “stedfastness in [his] faith, and obedience to [his] holy commandments” we aspire to follow. But then comes All Souls Day – not a festival, but a penitential commemoration of the faithful departed, and (often) of prayer for them. Historically the commemoration of All Souls of the Faithful Departed was associated with the doctrine of Purgatory, a place of remedial punishment for Christians who depart this life in a state of imperfect sanctity. Modern Roman Catholic apologists have somewhat backpedalled the punitive aspect of Purgatory – one conservative apologist described it as “heaven’s mud room” – but the older imagery spoke sternly of painful punishments, and fires in which souls are purified of all dross of sin. Yet in the late medieval church’s “chutes and ladders” scheme of salvation it was taught that the pains of Purgatory could be shortened by institutionally-certified good works offsetting the sins of the departed, and especially by the offering of masses for the dead, especially on All Souls Day.

The Anglican reformers objected to this doctrine, its lack of clear biblical foundations, the institutional abuses that followed it, especially the sale of indulgences (pardons for sins), and the spiritual and moral laxity it enabled. The Articles are emphatic in their rebuke: “the Romish Doctrine concerning Purgatory [and] Pardons, is a fond thing, vainly invented, and grounded upon no warranty of Scripture, but rather repugnant to the Word of God” (Article 22). The time for repentance and conversion is “now in the time of this mortal life”, not in the vague and indefinite future. Moreover, “[t]he Offering of Christ once made in that perfect redemption, propitiation, and satisfaction, for all the sins of the whole world, both original and actual; and there is none other satisfaction for sin, but that alone. Wherefore the sacrifices of Masses, in the which it was commonly said, that the Priest did offer Christ for the quick [i.e. the living] and the dead, to have remission of pain or guilt, were blasphemous fables, and dangerous deceits” (Article 31).

What then are Anglicans hoping to accomplish in this commemoration of all the souls of the faithful departed? To answer this, we note that our salvation has two distinct but inseparable aspects. A Christian believer is simul justus et peccator, simultaneously righteous and sinful. On the one side, those who put their whole trust in Christ are accounted righteous before God for his sake, for God imputes the perfect righteousness of Christ to them, and by the infinite merits of his righteousness all guilt of sin is washed away. On the other side, though the guilt of sin is done away, the power of sin remains, “yea, in them that are regenerated” (Article IX), and in baptism the faithful are charged to engage in the daily spiritual warfare “against sin, the world, and the devil”, daily dying to sin and rising against to righteousness. This is their progressive work of sanctification – the purifying of the will, without which we are not capable of enjoying God’s goodness. Few if any there be whose sanctification is completed in this life. Even in the greatest of saints, we may discern shocking flaws or blind spots. In common and garden Christians like ourselves, it may seem that we have little to show for all the grace that is lavished upon us – desultory effort, fitful progress, or progress at all, or the dismaying resurgence of sinful habits we thought to have left behind. Moreover, as Richard Hooker remarks, even “the best things that we do have somewhat in them to be pardoned” (Laws iii, 493). “If thou Lord, wilt be extreme to mark what is done amiss, O Lord, who may abide it?” The best that can be said of us (as Fr Crouse said) is that finally by God’s grace, we do intend the good, and we trust God’s mercy and grace to make that intention perfect. It’s a humbling, but hopeful thought.

When we speak of the faithful departed, we mean those whose final choice, even if only in the final moments of all life’s choices, is for the good; and we trust to God’s mercy to complete what lies beyond us to accomplish – to purify the heart, to bring to fruition the seed of the word that has been sown in their hearts, in the confidence, as a recent epistle lesson put it, “that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:6). For as surely as God has justified and forgiven us for all our sins for Christ’s sake, so he must also bring to perfection the sanctification of our souls by his Spirit. That’s the hope in which we entrust ourselves, and the souls of the departed to the mercy of God, in love and in faith.