All Saints Day 2026: what it means and how to keep it
On Sunday, November 1, the Church remembers every saint in heaven, the famous and the forgotten. Where the feast came from, how it differs from All Souls and Halloween, and how to keep it.
The MySavior teamUpdated · 10 min read
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
Matthew 5:8 · BSB
After this I looked and saw a multitude too large to count, from every nation and tribe and people and tongue, standing before the throne and before the Lamb
From Revelation 7:9 · BSB
All Saints Day is the Christian feast that honors every saint in heaven: the famous ones with cathedrals named after them, and the countless ones nobody remembers by name. In 2026 it falls on Sunday, November 1, 2026, and All Souls Day follows on Monday, November 2, 2026.
Most of the saints who shaped us will never have a feast day of their own. A grandmother who prayed at the kitchen table before anyone else was up. A Sunday school teacher who remembered your name. The man who opened the church every morning for thirty years and never once asked to be thanked. November 1 is their day too.
Below is what the feast means, where it came from, how it differs from All Souls and Halloween, and how Christians around the world keep it, with a handful of verses from the Berean Standard Bible and a short prayer to say on the day.
What the day is
A feast for every saint, named and unnamed
The calendar already gives hundreds of saints a day of their own. All Saints is for everyone else: the martyrs whose names were lost, the monks and mothers and farmers who loved God quietly and were never declared saints by anyone. In the New Testament, “saint” simply means one of God’s holy people. Paul writes “To all the saints in Christ Jesus at Philippi” about a whole congregation of ordinary believers with ordinary troubles.
So the feast looks two ways at once. It honors those already with God, and it reminds the living what they are called to become. Catholics, Orthodox, Anglicans, Lutherans and Methodists all keep it in some form, and the Apostles’ Creed names the conviction underneath it: “the communion of saints.”
The verse for the day
Hebrews 12:1
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off every encumbrance and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with endurance the race set out for us.
Hebrews 12:1 · BSB
Hebrews 11 is a long roll call of faith: Abel, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Moses, Rahab, and a crowd of others the writer does not even stop to name. Then chapter 12 turns to the reader. Everyone who finished the race before you now surrounds you, like a stadium full of people who already know how it ends. They are not there to judge your running. They are there to cheer.
William Walsham How built his hymn “For All the Saints,” first printed in 1864, on this verse, and churches still sing it on November 1. One line says it better than any explanation: “Yet all are one in Thee, for all are Thine.”
A short history
Where it began: a temple given to the martyrs
Rome, ItalyThe PantheonThe first Christians remembered each martyr on the anniversary of his or her death. As the lists grew, churches began to honor all the martyrs together as well. Around the year 400, John Chrysostom preached on a feast of all the martyrs kept on the first Sunday after Pentecost.
In Rome, the turning point was a building. On May 13, 609, Pope Boniface IV consecrated the Pantheon, the ancient temple of all the gods, as a church of Saint Mary and all the martyrs. It is still a church today. In the 730s Gregory III dedicated a chapel in Saint Peter’s to all the saints, and in 835, at the urging of Pope Gregory IV, the emperor Louis the Pious made November 1 a holy day across his empire. That is the date most of the Western Church keeps today.
The first reading at Mass
From Revelation 7:9
After this I looked and saw a multitude too large to count, from every nation and tribe and people and tongue, standing before the throne and before the Lamb
From Revelation 7:9 · BSB
Catholics hear this passage on November 1, and it may be the most hopeful crowd scene in Scripture. John cannot count it. It is not one nation, one century or one kind of person, but every tongue, standing and alive before the throne. The saints are not a small club of the extraordinary. Heaven, it turns out, is crowded.
The Gospel of the day
Matthew 5:8
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
Matthew 5:8 · BSB
The Gospel for All Saints is the Beatitudes, Jesus’ own portrait of a saint: poor in spirit, mourning, meek, hungry for righteousness, merciful, pure in heart, making peace, persecuted. Read the list slowly and it sounds less like a hall of fame than a description of the people who held your parish together.
Purity of heart is not perfection. It is a heart that wants one thing above everything else, and the promise attached to it is the whole point of the feast: they will see God.
Three days that belong together
All Saints, All Souls and Halloween
For All Souls Day
1 Thessalonians 4:13–14
Brothers, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you will not grieve like the rest, who are without hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, we also believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in Him.
1 Thessalonians 4:13–14 · BSB
Paul does not tell the Thessalonians not to grieve. He tells them not to grieve “like the rest, who are without hope.” Christian grief is still grief, with tears and empty chairs at the table, but it has a floor under it: Jesus died and rose again, and those who have fallen asleep in him are not lost.
That is why All Souls comes after All Saints and not before. We remember our own dead in the light of the feast.
How the world keeps it
Candles, chrysanthemums and clean graves
In much of Europe and Latin America, November 1 is a public holiday, and the cemeteries fill. In Poland, families tend the graves and light candles in glass lanterns, and after dark whole cemeteries glow. In France, La Toussaint is the day for chrysanthemums, set on the graves with wreaths. In the Philippines, Undas brings families to their relatives’ graves to clean and repair them, and to pray. In Mexico, November 1 is the first day of Día de Muertos, and in Austria and Bavaria people bake a braided sweet loaf, the Allerheiligenstriezel.
None of these customs is required. All of them say the same thing: the dead are not forgotten, and the saints are not far away.
Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox
When churches keep it in 2026
The Catholic Church keeps All Saints as a solemnity and, in many countries, as a holy day of obligation. This year November 1 is a Sunday, so the feast takes the place of that Sunday’s Mass, and All Souls follows on the Monday.
The Church of England keeps All Saints either on November 1 or on the Sunday between October 30 and November 5. Many Lutheran congregations move it to the first Sunday of November, and United Methodists keep All Saints Sunday then too, often reading aloud the names of members who died in the past year, sometimes lighting a candle or tolling a bell for each one. This year, with November 1 itself a Sunday, most Western churches land on the same day.
The Orthodox Church keeps its own Sunday of All Saints much earlier, on the first Sunday after Pentecost.
What we are becoming
1 John 3:2
Beloved, we are now children of God, and what we will be has not yet been revealed. We know that when Christ appears, we will be like Him, for we will see Him as He is.
1 John 3:2 · BSB
This is the second reading at the Catholic Mass for the day, and it explains why a saint is not a different kind of Christian. “We are now children of God,” John writes, and the rest has not yet been revealed. The saints are people in whom that becoming is finished. All Saints is a family gathering we have not reached yet, kept in advance by those still on the road.
On your iPhone
A saint for every day of the year
If All Saints leaves you wanting to know more of them, MySavior’s Saint of the Day widget puts one saint or feast on your Home Screen or Lock Screen for each day of the year, and it changes by itself at midnight. On November 1 it shows All Saints; on November 2, All Souls. The app keeps a short biography for each one, taken from Wikipedia.
The whole calendar is on this site as well, month by month, including every saint in November. And the countdown widget can keep the feast itself in view on your Lock Screen, as on the phone below.
Sunday, November 8
9:41
Count down to All Saints on your Lock ScreenMySavior’s countdown keeps the feast in view, and its Saint of the Day widget puts a saint or feast on your Home Screen for every day of the year.
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To say on November 1
A prayer for All Saints Day
Lord Jesus, thank you for the great cloud of witnesses: for the saints whose names we know, and for the many more known only to you. Thank you for the ones who first taught us to pray. Give us their courage and their joy, and keep us running until we stand with them before your throne. Amen.
Say it once on the morning of the feast. Then add a name or two of your own: the people who showed you what holiness looks like up close, in a kitchen or a hospital room or a pew near the back. That is All Saints, kept the old way.
A small practice for this week
Before November 1, write down the names of three people who taught you the faith. On the feast, thank God for each of them by name. On All Souls, if any of them have died, pray for them, and if you can, visit the grave and leave a candle or a few flowers. If they are still living, write them a short note and tell them what they gave you. Either way, you will have kept the feast.
Keep the saints close all year
Bible verse and prayer widgets you design yourself, a countdown to the feasts of the year, and a saint for every day.
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Questions
When is All Saints Day 2026?
All Saints Day is Sunday, November 1, 2026. It is always November 1, and All Souls Day follows on Monday, November 2, 2026. In 2027, All Saints falls on Monday, November 1, 2027.
What is the difference between All Saints Day and All Souls Day?
All Saints Day (November 1) celebrates everyone who is already with God in heaven, especially the saints with no feast of their own. All Souls Day (November 2) remembers all the faithful departed and prays for them. In short: on All Saints the Church celebrates, and on All Souls it prays and remembers.
Is All Saints Day related to Halloween?
Yes. Halloween is the eve of the feast: “All Hallows’ Eve,” from an old English word for a saint, a “hallow,” and the Scots “e’en” for evening. Most of its customs today have little to do with the Church, but the name still points to November 1.
Is All Saints Day a holy day of obligation?
In the Catholic Church it is a solemnity and, in many countries, a holy day of obligation; the rules differ from country to country, so check with your diocese. In 2026 it falls on a Sunday, so the feast replaces that Sunday’s Mass.
What Bible readings go with All Saints Day?
Hebrews 12:1, the “great cloud of witnesses,” is the verse most often linked to the day. At Catholic Mass the readings are Revelation 7:2–4, 9–14, Psalm 24, 1 John 3:1–3 and the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:1–12). Every verse quoted in this article is from the Berean Standard Bible (BSB).
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