Today, the feast of All Saints, we thank God for the countless people who in many different walks of life and countries across the world and across the centuries have consciously tried to live in accordance with the Gospel values of Jesus. In many ways today is a celebration of our faith that death is not the end, that Jesus, through his death and resurrection, has opened up an exciting new future for us.

I can't say I'm enthusiastic about the Apocalypse's view of what it may be like, with white robes and thrones and palms, but I do feel more at home with the letter of John, which has to do with the idea of our relationship with God as his children reaching fulfilment in God's loving presence. I think it is a celebration of the fulfilment in God of our human longing and thirsting for truth and beauty and goodness and life. It is a celebration of our conviction that the most important human reality is love.

Today is a celebration of God's lavish love for our world seen especially in the sending of Jesus to make it possible for us to share God's life now already, a life which through death bursts into fullness in ways we can't imagine. It is a celebration of the fact that through the coming of Jesus, the Word of God enfleshed, his sharing of our humanity in all its aspects except sin, our humanity has received a new dignity, new possibilities, new horizons, and that the ordinary things of life are no longer ordinary, but contain the seeds of eternity and are of everlasting worth. It is a celebration of the fact that the evolutionary process has crossed a new threshold, taking humanity into the circle of God's love, which seems to have been God's plan right from the beginning.

Today's feast is an invitation to embrace once again the good news of the mercy and love of God for each of us, a love which is faithful and constant, a love we cannot lose, a love beyond our imagining, an invitation to embrace and surrender to it. Today's feast is an opportunity to thank God for some extraordinary human beings who have lived their giftedness to the full and benefitted others in major ways, some of whom we have known personally. It is an invitation also to thank God for some ordinary human beings whose presence in our lives has made a difference, whose goodness and kindness have touched us, whose commitment and love have enriched us and challenged us to grow. In the quiet of our hearts we can name them.

And today's celebration is also a challenge to think about our own call to sainthood. The ideal which Don Bosco held up for his boys and young salesians was that they should become saints. We may feel hesitant or uncomfortable about the language of holiness and sanctity. But, whatever nomenclature we give it, as disciples of Jesus we are called to respond to the loving approach of God with all the generosity and capacity of our being – as the Shema of Israel puts it: to love God will all our mind and heart and strength, and this can't be separated from our compassionate and self-giving love of others.

The Gospel reading from the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew suggests some guidelines for us. We try to be poor in spirit, gentle, merciful, pure in heart, peacemakers. We also accept the challenges and difficulties of life. Today's celebration affords us the opportunity to recommit ourselves joyfully to this life project.

Reflection by Fr Michael Winstanley SDB

Photo by David Clode on Unsplash