In the Early Church, to be declared a saint, one had to die a martyr’s death for the faith, so the earliest recorded observance we have of a feast dedicated to the saints is a 4th century commemoration of martyrs in the Early Church. We are not sure how November 1 was selected as a feast to commemorate the saints, but this was the date of a celebration of the saints in Anglo-Saxon Britain beginning in the 9th century; it spread through the Roman Catholic Church soon after that.
The Catholic faithful are so grateful that our universal Church in all its wisdom has set a date to celebrate the community of saints. So what do we mean by saints? Normally, we probably think of those people of faith who led lives of extraordinary holiness, who have been canonized or beatified by the Church. We think of the saints whom we have celebrated this past month, such as St Francis of Assisi, St Teresa of Avila, St Pope John Paul II, St Jude, St Luke, St Therese of Lisieux, and St Jean de Brebeuf. In today's celebration, we use the word saint in a much broader sense, referring to all baptized Christians who have died and are now with God in glory in eternal life. Tomorrow, on All Souls Day, we will remember those who have died but need still a process of purification before they can come face-to-face with God in eternal life.
Today, our Gospel reading is the Beatitudes from Matthew’s Gospel. When we think of how we strive toward holiness, perhaps in an examination of conscience we undertake before going to the sacrament of reconciliation, we usually use the ten commandments as the standard. However, as we hear the Beatitudes today, perhaps we understand how they give us a wonderful guide to living a life of holiness as a disciple of Christ. Perhaps the key to the Beatitudes is being poor in spirit, in which we are called to humility and openness in they way we receive the kingdom of God in our present lives here on earth, being open to leading a life of compassionate love and service to God and to our neighbor. The poor in spirit are willing to stand before God with the open hands of a child, to receive what he has to give to us. The poor in spirit realize that our lives are not about power, control, and our own will, that we are not to depend upon our own spiritual pride. We are to accept our limitations and our imperfections as we rely on God as the center of our lives. I think that many of us can think of examples of how we have seen the attitudes fo the Beatitudes lived out in the lives of many of the members of the community of saints. A saint is that person who is willing to follow the life to which Christ invites him.
Today’s great feast is an invitation for us to give thanks, for our ancestors, family, loved ones and friends who have gone before us and who have entered eternal life. We look to that day when we too will be united with them into the eternal kingdom of God. Let us pray for all the saint today - those famous canonized saints as well as the saints we have known and lived alongside in the course of ordinary life. And may we ask for their prayers on our behalf, that we may live lives of faithfulness and holiness.
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