The saints are a reflection of the Son of God, who live on earth according to the beatitudes practiced by Jesus Christ even before he taught them: poverty, gentleness, pureness of heart, love for peace, persecution, martyrdom… It is impossible to determine the number of saints (144,000 is a symbolic number to indicate a huge immensity), and they are from all races and nations (First Reading). As they are a reflection of the Son on earth, the fullness of filial happiness in the vision of God is awaiting them in Heaven (Second Reading).

Doctrinal Messages

Jesus, master of the beatitudes

In the sermon on the mount, Jesus expressed what he had lived and what he would live until his death. He proclaims blessed those that are poor, and he will have nowhere to rest his head (Lk 9:58). “Blessed are the gentle,” and he defined himself as gentle and humble in heart (Mt 11:29). “Blessed are those that cry,” and he cried before Jerusalem, which kills the prophets and does not welcome those that are sent to her (Lk 19:41). “Blessed are the pure in heart,” and sin never dwelled in his heart, to the point that he asked, “Can any of you convict me of sin?” (Jn 8:46). “Blessed are the peacemakers,” and Jesus is the prince of peace who enters Jerusalem like a peaceful prince riding on a donkey (Mt 21:1-5) and says to Peter, “Put your sword back, for all who draw the sword will die by the sword” (Mt 26:52). “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for uprightness,” and he has no other nourishment than the will of the Father (Jn 4:34), and his thirst is none other than the redemption of the world (Jn 19:28). “Blessed are those who are persecuted in the cause of justice,” and he was treated like a criminal and was subjected to torture on the cross (cf Lk 23:1-25).

The saints, disciples of Jesus Christ

Like Christ and with him, the saints are the champions of the beatitudes. Among them, there are some that distinguish themselves from the rest in living particular beatitudes. Thus the champion of the beatitude of poverty is found in Saint Francis of Assisi; that of the weeping which will be consoled in Saint Monica, Saint Augustine’s mother; that of gentleness in Saint Francis of Sales, who was naturally prone to anger and violence; that of the pure in heart, in Saint Louis Gonzaga; that of the peacemaker, in Saint Bernardino of Siena, who was able to reconcile the Guelphs and Ghibellines; the champion of those who hunger and thirst for uprightness in Saint Thomas More, who preferred to die as a criminal out of fidelity and justice towards God; the champions of the persecuted, in all the martyrs who shed their blood before denying their Faith. After Christ, in the living of such beatitudes, come such saints and thousands and thousands more, who have lived some of the beatitudes with the fullness of their spirit. Thus they have been considered worthy of being children of God. On earth they saw some of the divine splendor, and after death they entered the eternal vision of the mystery of God.

The number of saints is impossible to determine

The number 144 is a multiple of 12, which in turn is four times three, that is, the sum of what is immeasurable, which reaches the extremes of the four cardinal points. These saints are from all races, countries and cultures, they are of all ages, gender, state and trade. The latest popes, especially John Paul II, have emphasized this universality by beatifying and canonizing numerous men and women of faith across the five continents. It is an immeasurable number, because in truth, all those who live and die in a state of grace and friendship with God are saints.

---

Pastoral Suggestions

The Lives of the Saints

It would be good for Christians to know and admire the lives of saints, especially those who are honored by the universal Church, and those that are from our own country or who have great resonance in a number of countries or in an entire continent. In history, they are the living reflection of holiness and of the virtues of Jesus Christ. With their simple and heroic way of practicing the virtues, they stimulate us to seek goodness and holiness, and they lead us to Jesus Christ and to the Father. In order for the faithful to know and admire the saints, either in the feasts of patron saints or in their memory, it may be worthwhile to briefly recall some of the aspects of their lives, some of the virtues in which they distinguished themselves, some of their teachings that will continue to enlighten and nourish the reflection of faithful Christians. Take advantage of occasions like catechesis to encourage adolescents and young people, especially, to read about the lives of saints by making pamphlets and books available.

God wants us all to be saints

God wants us all to be saints, according to our vocation and to our living conditions. no one must feel excluded, as unworthy as he may consider himself. God is not asking us for anything extraordinary in order for this to happen, for if that were the case, only some people would be capable of achieving holiness. He only asks us to live the spirit of the beatitudes in the simplicity of everyday life, making them present in everything that we do each day. He asks us to carry out our work with honor and joy. He asks us to live our family life with happiness, as parents, spouses, children, brothers, grandchildren … He asks us to always set a good example for others, wherever we are. He asks us to help the neediest, even when we are poor and in need ourselves. He asks us to raise our hearts to God during the day to pray, bless, thank and worship him.

SOURCE: YEAR A DICASTERY NOTES (1999)

P. Antonio Izqeuirdo, L.C., Copyright © Dicastery for the Clergy, The header image is an AI-generated visual concept illustrating the central themes, scripture quotes, and visual motifs from this week’s Mass readings.

The Hope of All Saints

1 November 2020 | Saint Peter’s Square

On this solemn Feast of All Saints, the Church invites us to reflect on the great hope, that is based on Christ’s Resurrection: Christ is risen and we will also be with him. The Saints and Blesseds are the most authoritative witnesses of Christian hope, because they lived it fully in their lives, amidst joys and sufferings, putting into practice the Beatitudes that Jesus preached and which resound in the Liturgy today (cf. Mt 5:1-12a). The evangelical Beatitudes, in fact, are the path to holiness.

I will focus now on two Beatitudes, the second and the third.

The Third Beatitude: The Power of Meekness

In the third Beatitude, Jesus states: “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth” (v. 5). Brothers and sisters, meekness! Meekness is characteristic of Jesus, who said of himself: “Learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart” (Mt 11:29).

The meek are those who know how to control themselves, who leave space for others, who listen to them and respect their way of living, their needs and their requests. They do not intend to overwhelm or diminish the other, they do not want to tower over or dominate everything, nor impose their ideas or their own interests to the detriment of others. These people, unappreciated by the worldly mentality, are, instead, precious in the eyes of God who gives them the promised land as an inheritance, that is, eternal life. This beatitude too begins here below and will be fulfilled in Heaven, in Christ.

Countering the Culture of Aggression

Meekness. At this moment in life, even in the world, where there is much aggressiveness…, in everyday life as well, the first thing that comes out of us is aggression, defensiveness. We need meekness to move forward on the path of holiness. To listen, to respect, not to attack: meekness.

Dear brothers and sisters, choosing purity, meekness and mercy; choosing to entrust oneself to the Lord in poverty of spirit and in affliction; dedicating oneself to justice and peace — all this means going against the current in respect to this world’s mindset, in respect to the culture of possession, of meaningless fun, of arrogance against the weakest. This evangelical path was trodden by the Saints and Blesseds.

The Universal Call to Unique Holiness

Today’s solemnity that honours All Saints reminds us of the personal and universal vocation to holiness, and proposes sure models for this journey that each person walks in a unique way, an unrepeatable way. It is enough to think of the inexhaustible variety of gifts and real life stories there are among the saints: they are not all the same, each one has their own personality, and developed their own life of holiness according to their own personality. Each one of us can do it, take this path: meekness, meekness, please, and we will head toward holiness.

Mary, Queen of All Saints

This immense family of faithful disciples of Christ has a Mother, the Virgin Mary. We venerate her under the title Queen of All Saints; but she is first of all the Mother who teaches each one of us to welcome and follow her Son. May she help us nourish the desire for holiness, walking the way of the Beatitudes.

Would you like help formatting this text into a bulleted summary, or perhaps drafting a reflection question based on one of these sections?pel consistently.urage to help build a civilization of love rooted in justice and authentic fraternity.

READ MORE

October 18, 2020

The Universal Call to Holiness

Wednesday, 1 November 2006

Our Eucharistic celebration began with the exhortation: “Let us all rejoice in the Lord”. The liturgy invites us to share in the heavenly jubilation of the Saints, to taste their joy. The Saints are not a small caste of chosen souls, but an innumerable crowd to which the liturgy urges us to raise our eyes. This multitude includes not only the officially recognized Saints, but the baptized of every epoch and nation who sought to carry out the divine will faithfully and lovingly. We are unacquainted with the faces and even the names of many of them, but with the eyes of faith we see them shine in God’s firmament like glorious stars.

The Joy of the Communion of Saints

Today, the Church celebrates her dignity as “Mother of the Saints, an image of the Eternal City” (A. Manzoni) and displays her beauty as the immaculate Bride of Christ, source and model of all holiness. She certainly does not lack contentious or even rebellious children, but it is in the Saints that she recognizes her characteristic features and precisely in them savors her deepest joy.

In the first reading, the author of the Book of Revelation describes them as “a great multitude which no man could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and tongues” (Rv 7: 9). This people includes the Saints of the Old Testament, starting with the righteous Abel and the faithful Patriarch Abraham, those of the New Testament, the numerous early Christian Martyrs, and the Blesseds and Saints of later centuries, up to the witnesses of Christ in this epoch of ours. They are all brought together by the common desire to incarnate the Gospel in their lives under the impulse of the Holy Spirit, the life-giving spirit of the People of God.Scriptural Harmony: Exodus and Thessalonians on Concretizing Love

The Gospel passage makes clear that being disciples of Christ means practicing his teachings, which can be summarized in the first and greatest commandment of the divine law: the commandment of love.

The True Meaning of the Solemnity

“Why should our praise and glorification, or even the celebration of this Solemnity, mean anything to the Saints?” A famous homily of St. Bernard for All Saints’ Day begins with this question. It could equally well be asked today, and the response the Saint offers us is also timely: “The Saints”, he says, “have no need of honor from us; neither does our devotion add the slightest thing to what is theirs…. But I tell you, when I think of them, I feel myself inflamed by a tremendous yearning” (Disc. 2, Opera Omnia Cisterc. 5, 364ff.).

This, then, is the meaning of today’s Solemnity: looking at the shining example of the Saints to reawaken within us the great longing to be like them, happy to live near God, in His light, in the great family of God’s friends. Being a Saint means living close to God, to live in His family. And this is the vocation of us all, vigorously reaffirmed by the Second Vatican Council and solemnly proposed today for our attention.

The Path to Holiness Through Self-Denial

How can we become holy, friends of God? We can first give a negative answer to this question: being a Saint requires neither extraordinary actions or works nor the possession of exceptional charisms.

Then comes the positive reply: it is necessary first of all to listen to Jesus and then to follow Him without losing heart when faced by difficulties. “If anyone serves me”, He warns us, “he must follow me; and where I am, there shall my servant be also; if any one serves me, the Father will honour him” (Jn 12: 26). Like the grain of wheat buried in the earth, those who trust Him and love Him sincerely accept dying to themselves. Indeed, He knows that whoever seeks to keep his life for himself loses it, and whoever gives himself, loses himself, and in this very way finds life (cf. Jn 12: 24-25).

The Church’s experience shows that every form of holiness, even if it follows different paths, always passes through the Way of the Cross, the way of self-denial. The Saints’ biographies describe men and women who, docile to the divine plan, sometimes faced unspeakable trials and suffering, persecution, and martyrdom. They persevered in their commitment: “they… have come out of the great tribulation”, one reads in Revelation, “they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb” (Rv 7: 14). Their names are written in the book of life (cf. Rv 20: 12) and Heaven is their eternal dwelling-place.

The example of the Saints encourages us to follow in their same footsteps and to experience the joy of those who trust in God, for the one true cause of sorrow and unhappiness for men and women is to live far from Him.

Holiness as a Gift of Divine Love

Holiness demands a constant effort, but it is possible for everyone because, rather than a human effort, it is first and foremost a gift of God, thrice Holy (cf. Is 6: 3). In the second reading, the Apostle John remarks: “See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are” (1 Jn 3: 1).

It is God, therefore, who loved us first and made us His adoptive sons in Jesus. Everything in our lives is a gift of His love: how can we be indifferent before such a great mystery? How can we not respond to the Heavenly Father’s love by living as grateful children? In Christ, He gave us the gift of His entire self and calls us to a personal and profound relationship with Him.

Consequently, the more we imitate Jesus and remain united to Him, the more we enter into the mystery of His divine holiness. We discover that He loves us infinitely, and this prompts us in turn to love our brethren. Loving always entails an act of self-denial, “losing ourselves”, and it is precisely this that makes us happy.

Living the Beatitudes

Thus, we have come to the Gospel of this feast, the proclamation of the Beatitudes which we have just heard resound in this Basilica. Jesus says: Blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed those who mourn, the meek; blessed those who hunger and thirst for justice, the merciful; blessed the pure in heart, the peacemakers, the persecuted for the sake of justice (cf. Mt 5: 3-10).

In truth, the blessed par excellence is only Jesus. He is, in fact, the true poor in spirit, the one afflicted, the meek one, the one hungering and thirsting for justice, the merciful, the pure of heart, the peacemaker. He is the one persecuted for the sake of justice.

The Beatitudes show us the spiritual features of Jesus and thus express His mystery, the mystery of His death and Resurrection, of His passion and of the joy of His Resurrection. This mystery, which is the mystery of true blessedness, invites us to follow Jesus and thus to walk toward it.

To the extent that we accept His proposal and set out to follow Him—each one in his own circumstances—we too can participate in His blessedness. With Him, the impossible becomes possible and even a camel can pass through the eye of a needle (cf. Mk 10: 25); with His help, only with His help, can we become perfect as the Heavenly Father is perfect (cf. Mt 5: 48).

Conclusion: Nourished by the Eucharist

Dear brothers and sisters, we are now entering the heart of the Eucharistic celebration that encourages and nourishes holiness. In a little while, Christ will make Himself present in the most exalted way, Christ the true Vine to whom the faithful on earth and the Saints in Heaven are united like branches. Thus, the communion of the pilgrim Church in the world with the Church triumphant in glory will increase.

In the Preface, we will proclaim that the Saints are friends and models of life for us. Let us invoke them so that they may help us to imitate them and strive to respond generously, as they did, to the divine call. In particular, let us invoke Mary, Mother of the Lord and mirror of all holiness. May she, the All Holy, make us faithful disciples of her Son Jesus Christ!

READ MORE

NA

20 October 2002 | CAPPELLA PAPALE FOR THE BEATIFICATION OF 6 SERVANTS OF GOD

TBD