Happy All Saints Day! 

Along with Ash Wednesday, Holy Thursday, and the entire Season of Advent, All Saints’ Day is one of my favorite feasts in the liturgical year. On this day, Catholics everywhere honor all the saints – both the known “capital S Saints” and the unknown “lower case s saints” – who have gone before us. We remember the canonized Saints whose legacies live on in the stories of the Church, and we remember the uncanonized saints from our own families and circles of friends, whose stories we tell in our homes and in our hearts. As we remember these names, as well tell these stories, and as we call to mind the members of the communion of saints who matter most to us, we reflect on the holiness and virtues of the saints and consider how we can aspire to their example of Christian living. 

Given how much I like the feast day, my family celebrates All Saints fully each year. (Isn’t adulthood and parenthood fun? We get to shape the culture of our homes and families based on our proclivities. I don’t think that will ever stop tickling me!). For us, this celebration includes a few annual traditions. We cover our mantle with photographs of our deceased loved ones who loved God, followed Jesus, and used their gifts to make the world a better place, and we spend time telling stories about them: my husband’s dad, my Aunt Anne, my Aunt Teresa, our grandparents, and others. We play the Litany of the Saints on repeat. We go to Mass. We read saint books throughout the day.

I’m also always game for trying new traditions and activities. This year, since All Saints Day falls on a Friday, we’re having a saint themed movie night and watching the Pixar film Coco. While Coco is not directly tied to All Saints Day, it shares thematic connections in its portrayal of the remembrance of the dead, and it’s a great springboard for conversation with my children about how the soul lives on after life on this earth, and that remembering the lives of our deceased loved ones brings wisdom and goodness to our lives. I also thought it might be fun some year (I don’t have it in me, this year!) to have a saint themed dinner in which we tie each food on the table to a particular saint (you know, fish for Sts Peter and Andrew; pasta for St. Francis Caracciolo, the patron Saint of Italian chefs). 

While I pay special attention to honoring the lives of saints in our home on All Saints Day, it is by far not the only day of the year when we like to incorporate the saints into our family life. Maybe you are looking for ideas on how to celebrate All Saints Day today, or maybe you would like to bring the saints into your house in a more broad and general way. Whatever your specific goal, here are some ideas for incorporating the Communion of Saints into your family life. 

Pick a Patron Saint Each Year 

I can’t remember where I read about this idea (maybe Kendra Tierny’s Catholic All Year Compendium?), but I love it. On All Saints Day (or the first day of the Liturgical Year, or January first, or any day for that matter!), choose a saint whom you want to turn to for intercession, remember the life of, and honor in a special way for the year. You could pick a saint who has significance to your family for cultural reasons (the patron saint of your home country, or the home country of your ancestors, for instance), for special needs that you have at the time (St. Peregrine is the patron saint of cancer), for state-of-life reasons (St. Aloysius Gonzaga is the patron saint of youth), or just for pure fun (St. Antonio Abate is the patron saint of pizza). Throughout the year, do all you can to learn about the saint and make him or her a part of your family prayer, conversation and family culture.

Decorate your Home with the Saints

If adding an additional celebration or practice seems like a heavy lift at your present stage of family life, then a simple way to incorporate the communion of saints into your family life is integrating them into your home decor. Add a framed image here, and a wall plaque there, and voila! The saints are in your home. Whether you talk about these saints whom you have invited into your family’s dwelling place with frequency or not, their presence in the everyday ebbs and flows of life speaks a message. It says, “these are our people; we look to them for inspiration and guidance; we lift up the values they exhibited with their lives and we seek to embody those values in our own ways of being.”  

Celebrate your Family’s Saints

When I was a child, I received a long distance phone call (this was a big deal at the time!) from my paternal grandfather every year on October 15th, the feast day of St. Teresa of Avila – my name saint. He would wish me a happy feast day and read to me the little blurb about St. Teresa from his Magnificat reading for the day, and it never failed to make me feel special, loved, and connected to both my grandfather and St. Teresa. I’m going to be fully transparent and admit that celebrating my children’s saint’s feast days is a practice that I had every intention of keeping before I had children, but have done a pretty lousy job of remembering year after year. But I have a vision of doing this (maybe a special dessert and going to Mass on the day?) and the days marked in my perpetual calendar. Who knows? This could be the year!