All Saints

Today is the great Solemnity of All Saints. It's best not to think of today as a holy day of obligation, making going to Mass just one more thing we must do in our often over-burdened schedules, but a holy day of opportunity when we are allowed to once again participate in the great communion of saints to which we belong by virtue of our baptism.

While All Saints is certainly a celebration of all of the saints, it is particularly a way of commemorating and celebrating those holy women and men whose names are lost to us, those people who followed Jesus Christ, thus making Him present among us, fulfilling their baptismal vocation to be a sacrament, that is, a visible and tangible sign of Christ's presence in and for the world. Along with those we know, like St. Francis, St. Thérèse, St. Gianna Molla, etc., they intercede for us before the throne of God and are numbered among those written about in Revelation:

"After this I had a vision of a great multitude, which no one could count, from every nation, race, people, and tongue. They stood before the throne and before the Lamb, wearing white robes and holding palm branches in their hands.

They cried out in a loud voice: 'Salvation comes from our God, who is seated on the throne, and from the Lamb'" (Rev. 7:9-10).