"Blessed are the Dead" : Sacred Music for All Saints & The End Times

For the faithful who have gone before us and are with Christ,
Let us give thanks to the Lord: Alleluia!​

—Liturgy of Evening Prayer
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All Saints’ Day is the most comprehensive festival among days of commemoration. Indeed, the Feast of All Saints encompasses the entirety of the great cloud of witnesses with which we are surrounded (Heb. 12:1). It holds before our eyes a great multitude which no man can number, of every nation, tribe, and language, who have come “out of the great tribulation [and] washed their robes . . . in the blood of the Lamb” (Rev. 7:9, 14). All Saints’ Day shares with Easter Sunday an emphasis on the resurrection. It overlaps with Pentecost in its emphasis on the ingathering of the church in its universality. Finally, and especially fitting for church year from November 1st through the Last Sunday in the Church Year, it shares with the last three Sundays of the church year an end-times focus on the life everlasting. This connection between All Saints’ Day and the end of the church year has not been lost on the great composers for the church. Three sacred choral works, arranged in biblical order, are fitting for the Bride on All Saints’ Day and through the end of the church year.
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