This post is adapted from the Church of England website, focusing on the seasons of the church year. Here, we look at the focus of our worship in November.
Introduction to the Season
No Christian is solitary. Through baptism we become members one of another in Christ, members of a company of saints whose mutual belonging transcends death:
One family, we dwell in him,
one Church, above, beneath;
though now divided by the stream,
the narrow stream of death. (Charles Wesley)
All Saints’ Day (1 November) celebrates men and women in whose lives the Church as a whole has seen the grace of God powerfully at work. It is an opportunity to give thanks for that grace, and for the wonderful ends to which it shapes a human life; it is a time to be encouraged by the example of the saints.
The Commemoration of the Faithful Departed on 2 November celebrates the saints in a more local and intimate way. It allows us to remember with thanksgiving before God those whom we have known more directly: those who gave us life, or who nurtured us in faith.
Remembrance Sunday (9 November) goes on to explore the theme of memory, both corporate and individual, as we confront issues of war and peace, loss and self-gift, memory and forgetting.
The annual cycle of the Church’s year ends with the Feast of Christ the King (23 November). The year that begins with the hope of the coming Messiah ends with the proclamation of his universal sovereignty. The Feast of Christ the King returns us to the Advent theme of judgement, with which the cycle once more begins.