Today we celebrate the solemnity of All Saints. Some of the adults in our Dioceses in the various parishes where I have served as a priest have told me that they did not learn a lot about the saints growing up. They knew of them, that they existed, but did not study them so much. Thankfully, in our current era, with the emphasis on learning more about the Early Church and the evolution of our faith coming from the Second Vatican Council, there has been a renaissance of interest in the saints in recent years.
When we think of today’s celebration of the saints, we might think about those holy men and women who have been canonized or beatified by our Church, which includes saints as diverse as St James the Apostle, St John the Evangelist, and St Jerome from the Early Church; lay people such as the married couple Louis and Zelie Martin and St Joan of Arc; missionaries such as Francis Xavier and Jean de Brebeuf; mystics such as John of the Cross and Teresa of Avila; and modern saints such as Mother Teresa and Jose Maria Escriva, the founder of Opus Dei. But, today’s celebration of the saints goes beyond those who have been canonized and beatified. All Saints Day celebrates all those baptized Christians who have died and who are now with God in heaven in eternal glory.
It is always interesting to hear the Gospel that has been chosen for All Saints Day: the Beatitudes from Matthew’s Gospel from the Sermon on the Mount. When we think of holiness, we might think about conforming to God’s Ten Commandments and God’s other laws that we are instructed to follow as disciples of Christ. And when we think of the values of Christ’s Good News, perhaps the Beatitudes are not what first come to our mind. The Beatitudes can be thought of as a kind of mission statement that we are called to follow as Christians that take us beyond the Ten Commandments. We are blessed by God, to be happy and fortunate as we follow the values of the Beatitudes, because by following the Beatitudes, it shows that we are putting God first in our lives. The saints have lived out the Beatitudes in their lives in many different ways. We are called to be poor in spirit, to realize that through our human weaknesses and frailties that we need the help and support of God, that we need God at the center of our lives. We are called to be meek in the Gospel sense, to reach out to others in tenderness, compassion, and care, to be aware of their needs to be aware of our connection as brothers and sisters in Christ. We are called to hunger and thirst for righteousness, to treat others with dignity and respect, to work together to ensure that all are treated with that dignity and respect, even if we have to make sacrifices to do so. We are called to be merciful, to extend God’s compassion and forgiveness to others, to be merciful to others in the sense that God the Father is merciful to us. The Beatitudes describe the attitudes, attributes, and values we are to have as disciples of Christ. Many of the saints had these same attributes. Their witness and their intercessions help us to strive toward the perfection of these Gospel values.
Our reading from the Book of Revelation tells us of John’s vision of saints in glory, unified with God in his kingdom: “a great multitude, which no one could count, from every nation, race, people, and tongue. They stood before the throne and before the Lamb, wearing white robes and holding palm branches in their hands.” Our celebration of All Saints Day today reminds us that we are called to be a part of that vast multitude of holy ones whose numbers are so great they cannot be counted. We remember the community of saints today. We give thanks to God for the community of saints. But, we also pray for their help and intercessions as well.
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