November 1 2026 - All Saints - Example of the Holy Ones

 

This last week in OCIA—with our adults preparing for the Sacraments of Christian Initiation—we were discussing the Liturgical Year: the seasons of the Church Calendar; the difference between solemnities, Feasts, and memorials; the importance of Sunday mass and holy days of obligation. One important feature of the liturgical calendar and our Church’s liturgical life is the saints—how the saints are honored throughout the year on their particular feast days. Those feast days typically correspond to the date of their death, though church documents often call the anniversary of their death—their dies natalis—their date of birth into eternity.

And so we celebrate the martyrs and saints throughout the Church year—for example St. Clare on August 11, St. Patrick on March 17, St. Anthony on June 13. And we do so, the Catechism explains, because we’re acknowledging that those holy souls who lived with Christ as Lord and patterned their lives after Christ—who suffered with Christ and died with Christ and now share in Christ’s glory in heaven—the saints are examples for us.

Take beloved Saint Francis of Assisi. We hear of his radical poverty, his love for the poor, his conviction for the Gospel, how he lived with a special harmony with creation, his embrace of the leper—and he inspires us by the way he lived, in the unique way he followed Jesus Christ. And his example leads us to consider how our prayer lives could be or should be a little bit more like his, how our charity to the poor, our gratitude for creation, our conviction for Christ’s teachings could be stronger.

And it’s not just St. Francis, but every saint has something to teach us. So throughout the days of the year, the church celebrates the particular feast days of the saints—proposing these holy ones as examples and seeking the intercession.

The question was asked the other night: does every day of the year have a corresponding saint? Well, after 2000 years, yes, the calendar is full, most of the times with many saints every day.  

November 1 is not only the Feast of All Saints on the current Liturgical Calendar. But it is also the feast day of some saints who are pretty obscure to us these days. I don’t know about you, but I know very little about St. Amabilis, St. Austremonius, Sts. Caesarius & Julian, St. Licinius, and the 20 other saints whose dies natalis is today, November 1.

This is one reason why we celebrate the Feast of All Saints, we have so many of them that we can’t even honor all of them individually any more. So, we have a special solemnity to honor them all: popes, bishops, priests, religious, married, single, kings and peasants.

Consider how St. John describes the communion of saints in our first reading from the book of Revelation. St. John describes his vision a great multitude from every nation, race, people, and tongue, standing before the throne of God and before the Lamb, wearing white robes and holding palm branches.

And this great, uncountable multitude gives us hope, doesn’t it? Holiness is possible. People from every walk of life, facing every sort of difficulty and temptation, have reached heaven by God’s grace. If this countless multitude can become saints, so can we, with God’s help.

St. John sees some other pertinent details: firstly, they are dressed in white robes—just like the white robes/surplices of our altar servers—the white garment we receive in baptism. Baptism is for making saints.

Secondly, the saints hold palm branches—a symbol of victory. The saints are victorious: they’ve crossed the finished line, they’ve won the race. Yet, notice they acknowledge, they have not done so on their own. They proclaim, “Salvation comes from our God, who is seated on the throne, and from the Lamb.”

Their salvation did not come from the size of their bank accounts, the admiration of their coworkers, their political influence, or their charming personalities. Human achievement, scientific progress, and military might cannot forgive our sins or give us eternal life. Salvation comes from God.

This does not mean that our choices are unimportant. The saints responded to God’s grace. They prayed, forgave, served, sacrificed, and loved. But even their ability to do these things was sustained by his God’s help.

In our Second Reading, St. John described how not only did God saved them, God’s love remade them: “see what love the Father has bestowed on us that we are called the children of God”. The saints are those who have allowed themselves to be remade by God’s love into his children.

And here is the vocation of each one of us. God invites each of us to accept his love in such a way that it transforms us, that it reshapes our identity, and guides our lives. Just as it is for us, God’s love through baptism gives us life—and make’s us God’s children. But also, consider, children are meant to grow. The life we receive in Baptism is meant to mature, shaping our thoughts, our desires, our choices.

As God’s children, we are called to bear a family resemblance to our Father: to become merciful as our Father is merciful, to love what he loves, and to seek what pleases him. The saints cultivate that family resemblance by turning away from selfishness, repenting of sins, and learning to love with the love of Christ.

Again again, each of us has the calling to be transformed day after day by God’s love for us and our love for God so that we can join the company of the saints in eternity. We willingly embrace our crosses, we struggle day after day to remain faithful in the face of our many temptations, we seek to “make ourselves pure, as he is pure”, to quote again the second reading. We make every effort to unfurl the sails of our souls to be impelled by the Holy Spirit into the world, and willingly bear the brunt of the insults and mockery of the world which does not know Christ because that’s what children of God are supposed to do.

We honor the saints today as examples of what that looks like, what discipleship looks like, what the beatitudes that we read in the Gospel look like when they are lived out by those who are making every effort—the effort we are all meant to put worth.

The saints, show us what blessed are the poor in spirit, looks like, and so we imitate them. They show us what blessed are the pure of heart, blessed are the merciful, look like, so we imitate them.  They show us what blessed are those insulted and persecuted for Christ looks like, and so we imitate them.

Study the saints, learn about your personal patron saints, celebrate the saints, love the saints, imitate the saints, cultivate the beatitudes like them, so that you may share the beatific vision of God with them, for the glory of God and the salvation of souls.