LET’S CELEBRATE
OUR GOD-GIFTED
CALL TO HOLINESS,
TO SAINTHOOD!
It was a treat and delight to see holy
munchkins, and some holy teenagers (to boot!), parade into our home on
Halloween night. What a perfect
heroic saintly lives of
those who have reached their heavenly goal.
The tradition is mixed with many contours
and a smorgasbord of different cultural practices. Underlining all of the traditions are some
common basic facts. Halloween, as you
know, is the coined expression for the vigil (eve) celebration of All Saints
Day. Hence “All Hallowed Eve” translates
into “Halloween”. On the
solemnity of All Saints Day the Catholic Church
celebrates the
triumphant joy of
all the holy
men and women who have gone before us and have a place in heaven at the
eternal banquet of the
Lord. Some of these holy souls, the
saints, are known to us by their outstanding lives, miracles and testimony and
have been canonized
and recognized by
Holy Mother the
Church as “Saints”
(e.g. St. Peter, St. Paul,
St. Patrick). Yet as the Book of Revelation tells us that
there are in heaven a huge multitude of saints who are unknown to us by name, - “After these things I looked, and there was a large
crowd that no one was able to count! They were from every nation, tribe, people, and language.
They were standing in front of the throne and the lamb and were wearing white
robes, with palm branches in their hands.”
(Revelation 7:9)
We are told that this heavenly multitude
have been marked with a seal on their forehead and washed their robes and made
them white in the blood of the Lamb.
This is great news! All of us
have been given the seal on our foreheads at baptism and
confirmation and have had our
sins washed away by the blood shed for us by Jesus. In fact we have all been
given the gift of ‘Sainthood’ and
have been claimed
by the Father
as His holy
adopted sons and
daughters in Christ. We are called to
preserve our holiness and
‘sainthood’ and to claim our place with the heavenly hosts. The gift of being a saint can only be
preserved with the help of God and the graces offered through the Sacraments of
the Church and a life of prayer, good works and sacrifices.
Our second reading from
pray for
you, asking that
our God might make
you worthy of His calling and that through His power He might help you
accomplish every good
desire and faithful work. That way the
name of our Lord Jesus will be glorified by you, and
you by Him, according to the grace of our God and Lord, Jesus Christ.” (Thessalonians 11-12)
The
day following All Saints Day is also a very important day that relates
to our dearly beloved dead. It is called
All Souls Day. The Catholic
Encyclopedia describes this holy day in these words, - “The commemoration of all the
faithful departed is celebrated by the Church on November 2. The Office of the
Dead must be recited by the clergy on this day. The theological basis for the
feast is the doctrine that the souls which, on departing from the body, are not
perfectly cleansed from venial sins, or have not fully atoned for past
transgressions, are debarred from the Beatific Vision, and that the faithful on
earth can help them by prayers, alms-deeds and especially by the sacrifice of
the Mass.” (The Catholic Encyclopedia,
We
are all called
to be holy
and be saints
in the Kingdom of God. Let us celebrate our God-given gift of
holiness and
sainthood with our prayers
and active participation in the life and mission of Jesus and his Church. Let us ask the saints, our extended spiritual family,
to pray for
us and let us
together continue to offer prayers for all the deceased in purgatory to
assist them on their way to heaven.
