All Saints – What It Is

What is All Saints

The Solemnity of All Saints is commemorated on November 01. It was established to honor all the saints; those known as well as unknown. The great Feast of All Saints has to do with commemorating all the canonized saints and all the un-canonized saints too. The canonized saints are those we commemorate throughout the year. Those that we know about after reviewing their biographies or learn about them from sermons, homilies or various other ways. These are the saints whom the Church proclaims explicitly and publicly and without error that they are in heaven. They have completed the race; they have  fought the good fight. They are victorious and delighting in the Beatific Vision of the Blessed Trinity now.

In the fourth century, neighbouring dioceses started to interchange feasts, to exchange relics, to divide them, and to join in a common feast; as is revealed by the invitation of St. Basil of Caesarea (397) to the bishops of the province of Pontus. In the persecution of Diocletian the number of martyrs became so numerous that a separate day could not be had for each. We find reference of a common day in a sermon of St. Ephrem the Syrian (373), and in the 74th homily of St. John Chrysostom (407).

At first just martyrs and St. John the Baptist were honored by a special day. Various other saints were included progressively, and grew in number when the canonization process increased in regularity.

In the celebration of All Saints, the Catholic Church honors all the saints in Heaven:-.

• to give thanks to God for the graces and crowns given to all his elect:.

• to celebrate their virtues by considering the holy example of numerous devoted servants of God of all sexes, ages, and conditions, and by pondering the inexpressible and eternal happiness which they already enjoy, and to which we are invited:.

• to plead the divine mercy through this overabundance of effective intercessors:.

• to fix any failures or sloth in not having properly recognized or acknowledged God in his saints, and to adorn him in the saints who are unknown to us, or for whom no particular celebrations have been appointed.

Our eagerness on the feast of All Saints ought to be such that it could be a reparation of our sloth in all the various other feasts of the year; they being all made up in this one solemn commemoration, which is an image of that everlasting magnificent feast which God himself constantly commemorates in heaven with all his saints, whom we humbly join in praising his adorable goodness for all his mercies, specifically for all treasures of grace which he has most munificently placed upon them. In this and all many other feasts of the saints, God is the one who is supremely praised.  All of the veneration which is paid to the saints is directed to give sovereign honor to God and to Him alone, whose gifts their graces are. Our addresses to them are just petitions to holy fellow creatures for the support of their prayers to God for us.

When, therefore, we honor the saints, in them and through them we recognize God, and Christ, true God and true man, the Redeemer and Savior of humanity, the King of the Saints, and the source of all their sanctity and magnificence. In his blood they have washed their robes: from him they obtain all their radiance, whiteness, and purity. We consider their virtues as copies taken from him, the Great Original, as streams from his fountain; or as images of his virtues produced by the light and the glory of his spirit and grace in them. His divine life is their great exemplar and prototype, and in the characteristically virtues of each saint, a few of his most prominent virtues are seen: his hidden life in the privacy of the anchoret; his pureness in the virgins; his perseverance or charity in some; his immeasurable love and mercy; his divine zeal in others; in them all in some degree his plenitude of all virtue and sanctity.

Not only are the virtues of the saints just reproductions of the life or spirit of Christ; they are likewise the fruit of his redemption; all of his gifts and graces. And when we recognize the saints we recognize and praise him who is the Author of all their excellence.  All feast days of saints are instituted to honor God and our Blessed Redeemer.

So this year, as we prepare to celebrate the feast of All Saints, let us do so with heartfelt gratitude for the many wonders God has worked through the countless saints who have embraced God’s will, and have left for us countless legacies to aspire towards.