All Saints Day, Nov 1st

 

Who are your heroes? Who are the people who inspire you, and who you want to be like? Young people often times put up posters of their heroes. Many of them are athletes such as football or basket ball stars. Yet, there can be no better hero, than the saints. To have the pictures of the saints on our walls reminds us of those who lived out the beatitudes and made it to heaven. They ran the race and received the crown of glory when they entered heaven. They remind us of what’s most important in life and that we too can become heroes.

This why the Church gives us a feast to honor all saints, known and unknown. Perhaps you have known ordinary people, who did the best they could to get to heaven. Someone who never complained when they were sick; Or a person who lived a life of charity and thought nothing of themselves.: Or someone who never said an unkind word about anyone. It’s easy in the all busyness and cares of life to forget about them and so, one day a year, we pause to remember all those holy people. Without them, the faith would not have been kept alive for us. “We are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses.” They physically parted from us, but are spiritually near to us, praying for us and encouraging us by their example.

We are all called to be saints. The Beatitudes give us the pattern of Christian way of life. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states: The beatitude we are promised confronts us with decisive moral choices.  It invites us to purify our hearts of bad instincts and to seek the love of God above all else.  It teaches us that true happiness is not found in riches or well-being, in human fame or power, or in any human achievement - however beneficial it may be - such as science, technology, and art, or indeed in any creature, but in God alone, the source of every good and of all love" (CCC # 1723).

The Beatitudes turn worldly values upside down. The world pursues happiness in wealth, power and fame, but the Gospel demands of us values that are essentially different. Do you want to give in to the demands of a worldly way of life, or have you decided to live true and authentic Christianity? The choice to live the Gospel changes our entire life, tells us how to act, how we are to dress, how we are to speak and how we are to interact with others. 

On this Solemnity of All Saints, may once again pray to the saints and look to their example, in helping us to strive to be saints, that one day, we too will join the whole company of heaven. And we pray to Mary, the Queen of All Saints, may She obtain for us the grace to live the life of a saint, in imitation of Her, the greatest of All Saints.