All Saints

Today we celebrate the Solemnity of All Saints. Keeping memory of holy men and women is a tradition that began early on in the life of the Church. In the first centuries, during the persecution of Christians, those who died for their faith were venerated because of their witness to Christ.  Early Christians honored these martyrs not on the day of their birth, but on the day of their death because that day was believed to be their true birth into eternal life.  Local communities celebrated Eucharist at the tombs, praying both for and to the dead as martyrs were believed to possess great intercessory power. 

The age of martyrdom ended when Christianity became an official religion, but the cult of saints continued.  Persons who were venerated as saints soon included Confessors, those who were persecuted for their faith but not killed, ascetics, virgins, and bishops.  Eventually, that list was expanded to include priests, those in religious life, and laypersons. All of the saints had one thing in common:  their witness to Christ.  They embodied the dying and rising of Jesus by the way they lived.  They allowed the grace of God to triumph in their lives, and were models of Christian living.

Throughout the year, like the early Christians did, we remember individual saints by honoring them on the day of their death. But on this day, the Solemnity of All Saints, we pray in union with the communion of saints, all men and women, living and dead, on earth and in heaven.  This day tells us that God’s grace is embodied and witnessed through many varied personalities and different walks of life.  All Saints reminds us that we are already counted among the blessed, that we too are called to holiness, to model God’s extraordinary grace by the way we live our everyday, ordinary lives.