As we celebrate All Saints Day on the first Sunday in November we will again celebrate the glorious reality of the Communion of Saints, the blessed fellowship of all who belong to Christ the risen Lord both in paradise and on earth. As we will sing in that wonderful hymn of William Walsham How (1823-1897), “For All the Saints Who From Their Labors Rest:”

O blest communion, fellowship divine,
We feebly struggle, they in glory shine;
Yet all are one in Thee, for all are Thine.

Not even death can divide the Church, the mystical Body of the Lord who has conquered death and the grave. We in fact experience the Communion of Saints when we meet the risen Lord in the Holy Communion of His body and blood: as the church has prayed at every Holy Communion from time immemorial: “Therefore with angels and archangels and with all the company of heaven we laud and magnify Your glorious name…” That devout 17th century Lutheran pastor, Christian Scriver (1629-1693), prayed “that Your holy Supper may be my heaven on earth.” And so it is! Every celebration of the Holy Eucharist is a participation in the life of heaven as the Lamb of God who is worshipped by all the hosts of heaven is present with us here on earth. As we sing in the Divine Service: “This is the Feast of Victory for our God, for the Lamb who was slain has begun His reign.”

This month of November also brings Thanksgiving Day and, as is our custom, we will celebrate Vespers on Thanksgiving Eve at 7:30 P.M. One of the many lamentable signs of growing secularism is the way in which most of our citizens no longer feel any need to go to the house of God at Thanksgiving and there give Him thanks for His countless blessings to us as a nation. It is terribly easy to become consumed with all that’s wrong with our lives as individuals and as a nation: the habit of thanksgiving is medicine for this besetting sin of gloom and thanklessness. As we sing in one of the wonderful hymns for Thanksgiving, “Come, ye thankful people, come!” and give thanks to the Lord in the House of the Lord!

And speaking of thankfulness, I want to thank everyone who made Family Day, the 95th Anniversary of Dedication this year, such a happy occasion. As all of you who were present will agree, we were certainly blessed not only by the preaching but also by the presence of Pastor Dien Ashley Taylor, the Bishop of our Synod’s Atlantic District. I had known him for years but had never before heard him preach: I was thrilled to hear him! From where I was sitting during his sermon I could see faces in the congregation and everyone was clearly hanging on his every word. So we were fed both with rich spiritual food and with a delicious luncheon too. In just five years we will celebrate the 100th anniversary of the dedication of this church building.

Donnamae Stevens Barber fell asleep in the Lord on Thursday, October 2nd, and will be given Christian burial following the funeral service at Vaughn Greene Funeral Home, 4905 York Road, on Saturday, November 1st at 11:00 A.M. May the Light perpetual ever shine upon her and may the risen Lord comfort all who mourn with the sure and certain hope of the resurrection.

We continue to remember in our prayers: Bridget Bauman, James Bauman, Christopher Bell, Bertha Buchanan, Dana Carmichael, Tim Doswell, Quilla Downs, Bunny Duckett, Joyce Eaves, Albert Ford, Frank Ford, Iris Ford, Yolanda Ford, Sean Fortune, Lynne Funck, Katherine Gray, Sherry James, Gloria Jones, Byron Masterson, Crista Mohr, Mary Mokris, Elliott Robertson, Julia Silver, Robert Siperek Jr., Lawrence Smallwood, Paul Swank, George Volkman, Gary Watson; Marvalisa, Sierra, Jonathan and Steven Gibson.

Paul Swank is recovering at Future Care, 1046 North Point Road, Baltimore, MD 21224. Yolanda Ford is  at Autumn Lake Healthcare at Perring Parkway, 1801 Wentworth Road, Parkville, MD 21234.

At Thanksgiving and again at Christmas our congregation provides Aldi Gift Certificates for needy families connected with the Waverly School. Be sure to read what Bernie Knox has to say about this at the end of this newsletter and be generous in giving. And remember to keep bringing items for the GEDCO Food Pantry and personal items for the Helping Up Mission. Food insecurity and homelessness continue to plague so many of our fellow Americans. The need is great and apparently increasing day by day as is the need for help in Sudan and Ukraine and Gaza and in so many parts of the world. Remember that you can provide help through our Synod’s Contributor Care Line (888-030-4439) or through the secure website: lcms.org/givenow/mercy. You can also send a check to LCMS World Relief and Human Care, PO Box 66861, Saint Louis, MO 63166-6801. Make your check payable to LCMS and mark the check for LCMS World Relief and Human Care.

The last Sunday in November will be the First Sunday in Advent. Most of our Baltimore congregations no longer have midweek Advent Services, but this year the churches of our east Baltimore circuit will have joint midweek Advent services. They will be held here at Our Saviour at 7:30 P.M. on each of the three Wednesdays in Advent: December 3, 10, and 17. Pastor Bednash of Saint James Church, Pastor Barron of Calvary Church, and Pastor Esser of New Thing Church will preach. Supper will be served at 6:30 P.M. The weeks before Christmas are certainly full, but do plan on sharing in this Advent worship as we prepare to celebrate the birth of Christ.

As long as I have been your pastor – that’s 12 years now – I have regretted the fact that we have had but one opportunity for worship each week. Not everyone is always able to be present at 11 o’clock on Sunday morning! Given all the circumstances of our congregation and of life as it is today, I doubt that there is any ideal solution to this problem. But we will now have an early Divine Service at 8 o’clock, a full Divine Service with sermon and Holy Communion. But there will be no music. A spoken Divine Service is not unprecedented. Within living memory there were some churches in our Synod which had such a spoken service early on Sunday morning. I think this will meet a real need.

Neglect of the Divine Service on the Lord’s Day is regrettably a very widespread problem throughout all the churches of Christendom. It was not always so. During those first three centuries of the Church’s life, when attendance at the Holy Eucharist on the Lord’s Day could result in severe penalties, even death, Christians nevertheless gathered every Lord’s Day to meet the risen Lord in the Sacrament of the Altar. Once when asked by the official condemning a group of Christians to death why they insisted on being at the celebration of the Eucharist on the Lord’s Day, the Christians answered: “Without the Lord’s Day Service we cannot exist!” As we pray on All Saints Day for grace to follow the saints in all virtuous and godly living, let us commit ourselves anew to joining the Communion of Saints in Holy Communion as on every Lord’s Day the crucified and risen Lord comes to be with us in the Holy Mysteries of His body and blood.

Affectionately in our risen Lord,

Pastor McClean

Aldi Gift Certificates

Again this year OSLC will be providing Aldi’s Gift Certificates to needy families at Thanksgiving and Christmas. Please indicate on your check memo line or in an accompanying note that the funds are designated for those Gift Certificates.

We also use the collections taken at our Lenten Soup Suppers to help support our Food Gift Certificates. In 2024, combining the Soup Supper donations and congregational donations, we were able to provide 12 families with a $90 certificate for Thanksgiving and a $75 gift certificate at Christmas, Our four Soup Suppers this year yielded a total of $275 to begin our Gift Certificate Fund.

The deadline for giving for the Thanksgiving Gift Cards is Sunday, November 9, and the deadline for the Christmas Gift Cards is Sunday, November 30. Our Offering Counters count every two weeks and we need time to mail the cards and let the recipients know the amount of the Gift Cards so they can plan for their holiday meals.

These gifts allow us to assist those less fortunate than ourselves in providing for their families at holidays which reminds us to be thankful for all the Lord has given us and especially to celebrate God’s greatest gift of all – the birth of our Savior Jesus.

– Bernie Knox