Solemnity of All Saints

Rev 7:2-4, 9-14
Ps 24:1bc-2, 3-4ab, 5-6
1 Jn 3:1-3
Mt 5:1-12a

I don’t think I can say this enough: I love our Catholic Faith.  There’s a “full-ness” to our Faith.  We have many feast days for the many saints in our calendar and that’s wonderful.  Everyone has their favorite saint that they like to imitate, read, or ask for intercession.  Smart saints, simple saints, fun saints, humorous saints, martyr saints, and pure saints; there are saints for pretty much every occasion and part of our life.  The famous and popular ones get on the liturgical calendar, but we must never forget the countless multitudes of saints that are not on our calendar: thousands, millions, billions of saints.

This is the fullness of our faith: that when we worship and celebrate Mass, on this day which we commemorate ALL the saints in heaven, we realize that we are worshipping as ONE BODY in Christ.  Every time we celebrate Mass, all the saints and angels have come down from heaven to this sanctuary to worship with us.  This is all the more true as we enter into the final weeks of the liturgical year.  In a few weeks we will celebrate Christ the King, reigning in heaven in glory in the company of all the saints.  And in November we remember especially the faithful departed, souls of our loved ones, and those deserving of the heavenly reward.  The liturgical year then is a microcosm, as it were, of all of time and these are the “end times” of the Second Coming.  What we read in the First Reading is being realized – this is not make believe, but rather actually happening.

I am really excited with this new translation of the Mass that we have because it is just so rich.  Look at the opening prayer, or properly called COLLECT.  It prays this: Almighty and ever-living God, by whose gift we venerate in one celebration the merits of all the Saints.  God gives us the gift of celebrating the merits of all the Saints in ONE celebration so that through their intercession we may be reconciled and earnestly long for God!!  How great is that?  And the prayer over the offerings?  May these offerings we bring …be pleasing to you, O Lord, and grant that, just as we believe the Saints to be already assured of immortality, so we may experience their concern for our salvation.   If you take this in slowly you will just see how rich this is.  Our faith professes that the Saints are assured of immortality.  And we pray that as far as we believe this; that the Saints too are praying for us and our salvation.  Wow…  This tells me two things: 1.) Our faith and dependence on their intercession is proportional to our salvation.  2.) We are not alone in this world by any stretch of the imagination.  Just because the saints are in heaven does not mean they forget us, rather they desire all the more for us to experience the joy they experience too.  This is a family reunion on a scale that is almost in comprehendible.  And finally, the closing prayer after Communion: … we implore your grace, so that, coming to perfect holiness in the fullness of your love, we may pass from this pilgrim table to the banquet of our heavenly homeland.  The altar here is a pilgrim table – as good as it is, we are not meant to be here forever – we should be longing for the banquet in heaven with all the saints.  May all the saints intercede for us without ceasing until we are reunited with Our Lord in glory.