"Let Us Now Praise Famous Men"

 

“Or wait—try All Saints. That’s what they call places when they can’t decide on a single saint.”

-Garmus, Bonnie. “Lessons in Chemistry: A Novel” 

Chemist and television cooking show host Elizabeth Zott, the main character in “Lessons in Chemistry,” is an avowed atheist, but has a soft spot for a Presbyterian minister named Wakely, who isn’t given a first name. Wakely, who gives the eulogy for Elizabeth Zott’s partner, Calvin Evans, later befriends Elizabeth’s young daughter Mad (sometimes called Madeline, but legally “Mad”), who is trying to find information about her late father. She knows he lived in a Catholic orphanage in Iowa, and while Mad can’t find its name in the Sioux City phone book (this is 1962) under “Saint,” Wakely makes the quip about “All Saints.” 

Which is a roundabout way of introducing the Feast of All Saints, celebrated in many Christian churches on November 1. It may be one of the purest Christian holidays because it’s been eclipsed by the pagan holiday it was meant to supplant. If Wikipedia and Merriam-Webster are correct, the celebration of All Saints on the first day of November began in the eighth century in the British Isles, to provide a Christian alternative to the Celtic festival of Samhain (pronounced SAH-win in Irish). 

Outside the British Isles, the feast had been celebrated in the spring, but by the ninth century the November 1 date spread across the English Channel to the Frankish Empire. By the twelfth century, November 1 had become All Saints’ Day in Western Christendom. 

Back in Britain, it wasn’t called All Saints’ Day, but All Hallows, or Hallowmas, from the Old English “hālig,” meaning “holy.” Merriam-Webster notes: 

“All Hallows' used to be a bigger deal—one 17th-century source notes that ‘the three grand days are All-hallown, Candlemass, and Ascension day’—and since important feast days usually started the night before with a vigil, the evening before All Hallows' gained its own notoriety as All Hallows' Even or All Hallows' Eve. All Hallows' Even was shortened to Hallow-e'en by the 16th century. The word Hallowe'en began to lose its apostrophe in the 18th century, though we still have some evidence for the apostrophized version.” (“The Origin of 'Halloween.' Or 'Hallowe'en'?”) 

In Celtic tradition, Samhain was a time when the line between the living and the dead became blurred, and the souls of the dead could visit the living. Some of the traditions of Samhain, such as wearing masks, carving vegetables (often turnips) into lanterns, and telling ghost stories, began to be celebrated on Hallowe’en. The Christian celebration added souling, where people went through the town asking for cakes, “soulcakes” in exchange for prayers for deceased relatives, which became the ancestor of trick-or-treating. 

Today, Halloween, without the apostrophe, is virtually divorced from All Saints’ Day. We usually celebrate All Saints’ Day on the Sunday following November 1. And of course, it isn’t just for people who “can’t decide on a single saint,” but for all the saints, known and unknown. In the traditional Episcopal lectionary for All Saints’, the first reading makes it clear:

 

Ecclesiasticus 44:1-10,13-14

(a commemoration of patriarchs, prophets, and other heroes of ancient Israel.)

 

Let us now praise famous men,

and our fathers in their generations.

The LORD apportioned to them great glory,

his majesty from the beginning.

There were those who ruled in their kingdoms,

and were men renowned for their power,

giving counsel by their understanding,

and proclaiming prophecies;

leaders of the people in their deliberations

and in understanding of learning for the people,

wise in their words of instruction;

those who composed musical tunes,

and set forth verses in writing;

rich men furnished with resources,

living peaceably in their habitations --

all these were honored in their generations,

and were the glory of their times. 

There are some of them who have left a name,

so that men declare their praise.

And there are some who have no memorial,

who have perished as though they had not lived;

they have become as though they had not been born,

and so have their children after them. 

But these were men of mercy,

whose righteous deeds have not been forgotten.

Their posterity will continue for ever,

and their glory will not be blotted out.

Their bodies were buried in peace,

and their name lives to all generations.

Image: Fra Angelico (c.1395-1455), The Forerunners of Christ with Saints and Martyrs

Frank Tracy Griswold, R.I.P.

Frank Tracy Griswold III, tenth Bishop of Chicago and 25th Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, died March 5 at age 85. A scion of a prominent Philadelphia family and a descendant of two American bishops, he was instrumental in guiding the church into an era of inclusion, including the ordination of women and members of the LGBT community. Although very much an Anglo-Catholic, he helped negotiate the church’s full communion relationship with the Evangelical Lutheran Church. And even before he was bishop, he participated in the revision of the Book of Common Prayer.

I like to think I participated in his elevation to the episcopate. In 1984 I was a member of St. Martin’s Episcopal Church, a struggling parish on the West Side of Chicago, when Bishop James Montgomery announced his impending retirement and called for a bishop coadjutor—one who would become diocesan bishop on his retirement. Bishop Montgomery had been socially liberal—he had worked with civil rights leaders, including Martin Luther King, Jr.—but he was theologically conservative. He opposed the ordination of women, though he did permit other bishops to ordain women in the diocese.

After Bishop Montgomery made his announcement, all the parishes in the diocese were given a chance to weigh in on the candidates for bishop coadjutor. And for me and the other St. Martin’s vestry members, one Frank T. Griswold stood out among the rest. We learned that he had been a member of the group that wrote the 1979 Book of Common Prayer and had been a major contributor to Eucharistic Prayer B. While I wasn’t a member of the diocesan convention that elected Frank Griswold, St. Martin’s delegates supported him.

On November 16, 1986, my wife Kathleen, a Roman Catholic, and I participated in a joint Episcopal-Catholic service. It began at St. James Episcopal Cathedral, where Episcopal Church bishops Montgomery and Griswold, and Roman Catholic Cardinal Joseph Bernardin signed a 12-point covenant between the two churches. We then processed to the Catholic Holy Name Cathedral for the joint service. Bishop Griswold later wrote of the service: “The Episcopal diocese of Chicago entered into a covenant with the Roman Catholic archdiocese in 1985, shortly after I was ordained bishop. In the covenant we agreed to share resources and to collaborate wherever possible in areas of ministry, evangelization and service to the poor and needy.” 

As Bishop of Chicago, Griswold welcomed women into the clergy. His Anglo-Catholic credentials helped ease that transition—by 1997, when he left the Chicago to become Presiding Bishop, 41 of the diocese’s 146 priests were women. In 1994 he was one of 80 bishops to sign a statement declaring sexual orientation to be “morally neutral” and that “faithful, monogamous, committed” gay relationships were worthy of honor.

His election as Presiding Bishop brought him to the center of the worldwide Anglican struggle over the role of both women and the LGBT community in the church. In 2003 he presided over the consecration of Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, the first openly gay bishop in the church. “I see no impediment to assenting to the overwhelming choice” of the diocese’s constituents, Griswold said.

In the midst of this controversy, he presided of the 2000 General Convention’s ratification of ''Called to Common Mission,” the compact with Evangelical Lutheran Church, which allows Lutheran pastors to serve in Episcopal churches and vice versa. Again, his High Church background was surely a factor in its passage. And he was co-chairman of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission from 1998 to 2003.

Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, his successor as Presiding Bishop, praised Griswold as a “peaceable diplomat,” who navigated the church though controversial times. “That journey was not easy, but he led from the heart he knew. And sometimes that heart prompted surprising humor, slipped in slantwise,” Jefferts Schori said. “We give thanks for his steady and sacrificial leadership, his deep wisdom and lightheartedness, and his care not only for this chafing church, but for all God’s creatures.”

Originally written for The Tower, a publication of St. John the Evangelist Episcopal Church in Elkhart, Indiana. Photo credit, Randy Greve via Wikimedia Commons.