ARCHDIOCESE OF PHILADELPHIA

Praised be Jesus Christ!

Thank you, dear friends, for the faith that inspires your presence here this morning. We know that this feast is a great feast in the history of the Church and it has a tremendous lesson for all of us, as disciples of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Today, as always, when we gather for the Eucharist we celebrate the gift of salvation that Jesus gives us by His death on the Cross. By His great act of love Jesus procured for us salvation, eternal life, eternal happiness, eternal joy. Every time we come to Mass we celebrate one or other aspect of this event. Today-the Solemnity of All Saints-we celebrate the goal of our lives, which is to be one day with the saints in heaven. We celebrate this vast multitude of people who have gone before us with the sign of faith, who have lived faithful lives over the centuries and now are gathered in the kingdom of God with our Lord Jesus Christ.

In our first reading from the Book of Revelation, we have an inkling of who these people are. The question was raised to God: Who are these people? And the answer is: the people that surround the throne of God. "These are the ones who have survived the time of great distress; they have washed their robes and made them white in the Blood of the Lamb."

Dear friends, this tells us a great deal about Christianity in general; it tells us a great deal about God's saints. It tells us that everyone who is in heaven-who is a member of this communion of saints-is there because he or she has had contact with God's mercy, with the Blood of Jesus who has redeemed us. And, therefore, on this feast we honor all these unknown saints of God who, throughout the ages, have been faithful to Christ and now have received their reward. Each one of these saints is worthy of our respect and admiration. But, above all, this feast of All the Saints is a great tribute to Jesus Christ our Savior. Because, in honoring the saints who were saved through His great sacrifice on the Cross, we honor Jesus Christ the Savior of the world. Yes, this great feast is a feast that honors the Blood of Jesus in a very special way. It honors His salvific action, His great act of love when He died for us on the Cross. Through what is perpetuated in the Mass all of these saints are now our intercessors in heaven. This is the beautiful lesson of this great feast on which we recall that this great multitude has been saved by God through the Blood of Jesus Christ.

This multitude is also a great example to all of us, because these saints include people, as the Book of Revelation says, "from every nation, race, people, and tongue." They are the Christians who have gone before us, who have been faithful. They are the young and the old; they are the innocent children; they are the single and the married people; they are the religious; they are the priests. They are the innocent, as well as converted sinners, but all of them have had this great privilege of having contact with the Blood of Jesus Christ, who is their Savior. How beautiful this is, dear friends.

This gives us encouragement. And Saint John, in our second reading, tells us that we are children of God, but, he says, it has not yet appeared what we will be. In other words, we too will be glorified one day with our brothers and sisters in the communion saints. This is our destiny and this is what God's love in Jesus Christ has made possible for us.

And, so, dear friends, we rejoice, we are encouraged and we praise God who has sent us the Savior of the world, His beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. It is He who shed His Blood on the Cross, so that you and I and all of us might join this immense multitude to praise God forever, that we too might praise the precious Blood of Jesus Christ, which is the price of our redemption. Amen.