“We abide in God’s love when we love one another.…This is the meaning of holy communion. It leads to the holy community, that is, the communion of saints,” wrote philosopher Beatrice Bruteau. And when we abide in that love, when we love one another, our joy will be complete, Jesus tells us.
But how and where to find that loving communion today? Our tradition says we find it in the communion of saints. There are the canonized saints like Saint Scholastica whose names we recognize and to whom we may look for examples of lives well lived. And each of us also have our own personal, private saints, members of our families, friends, and people we’ve heard about whose lives bear witness to love.
The Feast of All Saints on November 1 and the Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed (commonly known as All Souls Day) on November 2 are times when we pause to remember all these members of our community, our personal communion of saints, living and deceased.
Will you join us in prayerful preparation as we move toward these two significant celebrations? Throughout October, my sisters and I will focus our prayers on your intentions because it is in communion with you that we find our joy. We continue to pray for the needs of our world as we do all year round, but during October we will remember your intentions, those whom you love and have loved, in a special way. We will remember them in both our communal prayer in the monastery chapel and in our individual prayer.
Click here to send us the names of the persons, living and deceased, whom you would like us to remember this October. One of our sisters will carry your intentions in her prayer all month and all of us will remember them in communal prayer. Together our prayer strengthens the communion of saints and is a powerful force for good in the world. (If you are on our mailing list, you received this letter in the mail--you can still return your prayer intentions to us in the envelope provided in that mailing.)
An offering for remembrance in prayer is not necessary. However, on behalf of those we serve through our work, we are grateful for any gift you can make that will help us create Benedictine space for hospitality, beauty, spirituality, peace, and justice for all God’s creation.
Peace,
Sister Stephanie Schmidt, OSB Prioress
ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS ON COMMUNION OF SAINTS:
“This is our family in the spiritual order, the family of saints. And we also are saints. You may not think of yourself as exactly a saint, but if you are a sincere seeker after wholeness, then you belong to this community. I’m sure that not all the Romans and Corinthians Paul addressed as ‘saints’ were paragons of virtue, but it was their vocation, and is ours, to strive to fulfill Jesus’ command to love him by loving one another. We should believe in ourselves as saints. If we celebrate November 1 as All Saints’ Day, we should claim it and enjoy it as our feast day. If we recite the Apostles’ Creed, we should turn our attention seriously to believing in ‘the communion of the saints’ and asking what that means.” —Beatrice Bruteau
