November 1, 2006

All Saints Day

Today is one of my favorite feast days. It's sort of a populist celebration in that we venerate today not just the publicly canonized saints, but all of the holy people who lived and died in obscurity. We'll never know who they are, but today we celebrate their eternal enjoyment of the presence of God.

It's also a day about hope, a hope that began in one family and has snowballed throughout history to include all the nations and peoples of the world. God promised Abraham and Sarah, in their old age, that they would have a child and that their descendants would be a great nation. Remember that Paul says that this birth from a barren couple was the beginning of the Resurrection!

This promise has grown and grown through the ages until it reaches its final fulfillment in the picture of heaven from today's first reading, in which thousands upon thousands from every nation and people sing the praises of God in the great flowing sea of joy and praise that is heaven.

Not only do we celebrate all the saints today, but we celebrate a destiny, our destiny and that of the whole creation.

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