All Saints Day
Reflection
All Saints Day has a message for us. It challenges us to dare to be more. The truth about the saints, something we easily forget, is that they were just like us. Flesh and blood, strength and weakness. They were people of appetites and longings, ambitions and disappointments, vanities and eccentricities. They were exactly like the rest of us. All Saints Day reminds us of our great potential—the promise that lies within each of us. The promise of holiness. It is the promise that was fulfilled in the countless people we venerate this day—our models, our companions, our inspirations, our guides, both those universally known and those ordinary people who are unknown. They give us blessed hope because they assure us again and again: no one is born a saint. But every one of us can become one.
Adapted from Aleteia
Prayer
This is what God asks, only this:
Act justly
Love tenderly
Walk humbly with your God.
Micah 6:8
Action
Be attentive to the glimpses of holiness that surround us. How will you respond to the challenge in your own life?
Suggested Reading
We always thank God when we pray for you, because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all the saints.
Colossians 1:3-5
Precious in the sight of the God is the death of God’s saints.
Psalm 116.15
Sanctify yourself and you will sanctify society.
St. Francis of Assisi
For centuries the church has confronted the human community with role models of greatness. We call them saints when what we really often mean to say is ‘icon,’ ‘star,’ ‘hero,’ ones so possessed by an internal vision of divine goodness that they give us a glimpse of the face of God in the center of the human. They give us a taste of the possibilities of greatness in ourselves.
Joan Chittister
I am reminded of the biblical use of the term saint in the book of Acts. That it applies to each of us. All who are attempting to imitate the Christ in their lives merit the title of saint. Some do it more fully than others and are willing to let go of more to get the job done.
Matthew Fox
All of the places of our lives are sanctuaries; some of them just happen to have steeples. And all of the people in our lives are saints; it is just that some of them have day jobs and most will never have feast days named for them.
Robert Benson
The challenge of the saints of the twenty-first century is to begin again to comprehend the sacred in the ten thousand things of our world; to reverence what we have come to view as ordinary and devoid of spirit.
Edward Hays
I am not a saint, unless you think of a saint as a sinner who keeps on trying.
Nelson Mandela
Saints are those who managed to love more than we did.
Sorin Cerin
God creates out of nothing. Wonderful you say. Yes, to be sure, but God does what is still more wonderful: God makes saints out of sinners.
Soren Kierkegaard
Note: Today we prayerful remember all those who have died in this pandemic during the past months and their loved ones.