All Saints – A Call To Us All To Be Holy.

Annually on November 1st, the Catholic Church honors all Saints – those who have specific dates set aside for them, and those who don’t. All Saints is a reminder to us all of what we are called to – lives of holiness to become the Saints of God.  If you attend Holy Mass frequently, you would be familiar with the feast days of some saints. However, while much saints have feast days, an even larger number of saints don’t.

Pope Francis is constantly challenging us to live lives of holiness and of virtue. Righteousness is not something that is reserved for a selected couple of.  Every baptized Catholic, by the merits of our baptism, are called to be holy. It is in addressing this call to holiness that Saints are born. Sainthood is the realization of the call to holiness upon our lives.  It is something that is lived in and does not ‘just happen’ when we die.  Therefore, if we accept and live the challenge to be holy as our Heavenly Father is Holy, then we will certainly become Saints. The Catechism Of The Catholic Church clearly identifies and speaks about this call to holiness :-.

“All Christians in any state or walk of life are called to the fullness of Christian life and to the perfection of charity.” All are called to holiness: “Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

In order to reach this perfection the faithful should use the strength dealt out to them by Christ’s gift, so that… doing the will of the Father in everything, they may wholeheartedly devote themselves to the glory of God and to the service of their neighbor. Thus the holiness of the People of God will grow in fruitful abundance, as is clearly shown in the history of the Church through the lives of so many saints.

Spiritual progress tends toward ever more intimate union with Christ. This union is called “mystical” because it participates in the mystery of Christ through the sacraments – “the holy mysteries” – and, in him, in the mystery of the Holy Trinity. God calls us all to this intimate union with him, even if the special graces or extraordinary signs of this mystical life are granted only to some for the sake of manifesting the gratuitous gift given to all.
( 2013 – 2014)

What precisely is a saint? When asked, a number of persons might be tempted to believe that saints were perfect people who never did anything wrong and did not experience many of the challenges that we face in this life. There is nothing further from the truth than this notion!. Saints are not perfect. They allowed Jesus to take full control of their imperfections. They recognize their hopelessness and helplessness outside of God’s immeasurable mercy, and so sought constantly to abide in His love and mercy. Saints relied heavily on the graces from God to live accordingly to the Beatitudes. Saints strive to love God above and beyond all else, and in so doing, they strive to obey God’s laws. Saints do not stay down when fall, but always – by the grace of God – get back up again.  Saints were regular people just like you and I, that lived out their baptismal promises, giving their all to Christ Jesus, with-holding absolutely nothing.

There is a desire for greatness in every one of us. That desire was placed there by God, our loving Father to help guide us to eternal life. If we learn to abandon ourselves to God, through Christ Jesus His Son, we will become his saints.

Saint Renaldo of Brazil and also Saint Marva of New Jersey have a great ring to it, do not you think?