All Saints Day
Revelation 7:2-4, 9-14
Psalm 24:1bc-2, 3-4ab, 5-6
1 John 3:1-3
Matthew 5:1-12a 8
Saints begin in time and find their way into eternity only by the grace of God and by a choice of God as their all. The call to holiness is universal. We are invited to walk the path that leads to fulfillment in a relationship with God that is real, true and all-encompassing. This must be a free choice, and it can happen only by reliance on divine help.
What are the “steps” to become a saint? The answer to this is the heart of the Gospel: “Repent and believe in the Good News.” We must change our minds and plunge into the life of the Trinity through the power of the Spirit and the Paschal Mystery of Jesus’ life, death, resurrection and ascension into glory.
We do this when we respond to Jesus’ call to live the blessings of the poor in spirit, the meek, the mourning, those hungering and thirsting for righteousness. We are open to the gift of glory when we are merciful, clean of heart, makers of peace, accepting of the persecution and trials that come to those who hold out the hope of glory before a world bound up by its own limitations.
The Solemnity of All Saints, Nov. 1, and the Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed – All Souls Day, Nov. 2 – remind us and offer a liturgical experience of the communion of saints. As Catholics, we affirm that there are three “states of being” on the road to holiness: saints in training, here on earth; souls in purgatory, experiencing their final purification before entering into glory; and the saints in heaven, who urge us on to victory.
Awareness of the communion of saints is a wonderful consolation. As long as we live open to the grace of God, we can always reach for it. When we think of those who have completed their earthly journey as witnesses of faith, we can find in ourselves the capacity to follow after them.
Certain canonized saints become personal patrons. Those who are known to us who always had God at their center are given the Feast of All Saints, and we celebrate them today.
For some souls whom we knew who did not turn fully away from God, but who had an openness to Him, we can offer prayers and Mass intentions and other works of charity with them in mind. All Souls Day is a reminder that the hope of salvation is given to all and that we have a relationship with those who have gone ahead of us. This is one of the most precious treasures of the Catholic faith that was known in the first generations of Christianity and that has been kept alive through the centuries.
The saints in glory see the face of God and know the glory that was promised to them as a reward of their faith. With the souls in purgatory, we turn toward God to express the desire of our souls for the fulfillment that is promised: “Lord, this is the people that longs to see your face.” As the Church triumphant, the Church suffering and the Church militant (that is, “on the march”), we acknowledge our unity as the one, holy Church.
Our weakness is overcome by grace and by the prayers of our heavenly patrons and the souls in purgatory who pray for us, grateful for our remembrance of them in our prayers. When we seek to live the Beatitudes in time, we prepare for the life of the beatitude of eternity.
“Beloved: See what love the Father has bestowed on us that we may be called the children of God. Yet so we are. … Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we shall be has not yet been revealed. We do know that when it is revealed we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Everyone who has this hope based on him makes himself pure, as he is pure.”