Sunday the 1st of November 2026 - All Saints
Revelation 7:2-4, 9-14/ Ps 24(23)/1 John 3:1-3/ Matthew 5:1-12a
Looking around the world today it can be easy to become despondent. Belief in God, holiness, and faith appears to be apparent in so few. The gods of the material world are calling people to their pleasures, fleeting moments that do not last, rather than to the eternal joy of life with the one true God. The reading from Revelation today encourages us to look again, there is a great multitude, too many to count, from every nation, tribe, and language who are already gathered at the marriage feast of heaven. The feast that we are all invited to and are preparing to attend. The Solemnity of All Saints, that we celebrate today, reminds us of this and spurs us on in our own preparations. We honour today not only the great names of the saints we know but also the vast multitude whose names we will never hear in this life. They are mothers and fathers, brothers, sisters, children, people of all kinds. The quiet, the hidden, the faithful who spent their lives drawing ever closer to God and now stand in His presence forever. This celebration dates from the early Church which honoured the martyrs who gave their lives for their faith. A time came when so many died that their individual names could no longer be listed and their number counted. Christians then began to honour them together. Over time the feast came to embrace every soul who has reached heaven, named or not.
In the first reading from revelation, we are given a glimpse of the heavenly banquet. The great multitude impossible to count from every nation, clothed in white and offering praise to God and the Lamb. The wonderful truth is that when we celebrate Mass here on earth we come as close as possible to that heavenly celebration while still in this life. At Mass we join the heavenly liturgy, adding our voices with those in heaven when we cry out, Holy, Holy, Holy. If we can capture what it is we are touching at Mass we would never be distracted or bored and would seek every opportunity to partake of this wonderful celebration.
Who are this vast crowd who have found their way to this eternal banquet? We are told they have survived the great tribulation, a time of hardship and suffering. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. This passage was written for the early Christians who had to choose between the decadent, unbelieving world of their day and fidelity to Jesus. We face the same choice today. Do we follow the crowd, accepting the standards of our age with its immorality, its disrespect for life, its materialism? Or do we follow the standards of God? Turning away from the world's demands can bring a kind of persecution, but it is the road to salvation and to the eternal peace of heaven. Any suffering we might have to endure in this life is nothing compared with the joy that awaits us in the eternal life to come.
The Gospel passage gives us the route map along this road to salvation. Known as the beatitudes or blessings they are an image of what a life centred on God should look like. A life that is very different to what the world calls us to these days. A life poor in spirit, meek, merciful, clean hearted, hungering for righteousness, making peace, enduring insult for Christ's sake. This is a life of humility and mercy, and often of hardship. It is the life of Jesus Himself, and the life of every saint.
This calling to a life in Christ, received through our baptism, can feel overwhelming. The second reading gives us the hope we need to live it out. John tells us that we are God's children, which is wonderful, but he goes further reminding us that what we are destined to become is yet to be revealed. When this is revealed, we will be like God and will see Him as He is. This is the goal of our Christian life, to stand in the presence of the infinite goodness and glory of God. In our current poor, undeserving condition this promise seems almost unthinkable. John calls us to make ourselves pure as God is pure. A very tall order indeed.
This is why many of us will need a time of cleansing and preparation before we enter that perfect presence. The Church teaches that all who die in God's grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation, but after death they undergo purification so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven, and the presence of the perfect goodness that is God. What we celebrate today leads naturally into tomorrow, the commemoration of All Souls, when we pray for all the faithful departed on their way to that great union with God. The Church has always honoured the dead and offered prayers for them, and the greatest prayer is the Sacrifice of the Mass, offered that they may be made ready to see God face to face.
Great examples they may be, but many of the saints did not begin as saints. Saint Augustine lived for years in pride and sensuality before grace turned him around. Saint Paul, arguably the greatest evangelist, started off as a persecutor of Christians. Many saints are examples of how we can all be transformed. The more we allow God to purify us now, through prayer, the sacraments, works of mercy, and the patient bearing of our crosses, the less purification we will need to enter heaven. The saints show us how to live towards the joy of joining them in heaven. We are already citizens of heaven, created to live with God in the company of the saints. Let us cultivate a longing for our true home, setting aside the passing temptations of this world.
When we attend Mass may we come to see how heaven touches earth and joins us with the Communion of Saints, those known to us by name but also the vast numbers we do not know. They are not in some distant far-off place, they walk with us, helping us through our trials and tribulations, and interceding for us before the throne of the Lamb. Let us pray to our Holy Mother, Queen of Heaven, and all the saints in heaven to pray for us so that we may join with them in the eternal heavenly banquet. All the saints of heaven pray for us.
God Bless Brendan