Today is the day we celebrate all the saints of heaven! Heaven is bursting with the presence of countless saints surrounding God’s throne. We need their example in our lives. Pope Benedict XVI suggests that the saints are our point of contact with God:

Nothing can bring us into close contact with the beauty of Christ himself other than the world of beauty created by faith and light that shines out from the faces of the saints, through whom his own light becomes visible.

Not only did the saints show us Christ, they reveal that sanctity is for everyone. Pope Francis had this to say:

The Saints are not supermen, nor were they born perfect. They are like us, like each one of us. They are people who, before reaching the glory of heaven, lived normal lives with joys and sorrows, struggles and hopes. What changed their lives? When they recognized God’s love, they followed it with all their heart without reserve or hypocrisy. They spent their lives serving others, they endured suffering and adversity without hatred and responded to evil with good, spreading joy and peace.

What was the one thing they all shared? What was the one thing they all aspired to which is not far beyond our own reach? The following quote from Father Cajetan Mary da Bergamo gives us the hint:

In Paradise there are many Saints who never gave alms on earth: their poverty justified them. There lol are many Saints who never mortified their bodies by fasting or wearing hair shirts: their bodily infirmities excused them. There are many Saints too who were not virgins: their vocation was otherwise. But in Paradise there is no Saint who was not humble.

Humility is the key to being a saint. Humility is recognizing our place in the universe, our connectedness, and our dependence on God for the little we have. Humility is the lived recognition that we are always children of God. 

To not be humble is to be a child weaned on its mother’s lap—a child cut off from nourishment, puny, and helpless. Without humility, we nurture images of ourselves as grandiose, important, and superficially strong. We lack nourishment and the proper food from God, who is the source of our life. God makes us grow well. 

Out of all the saints in heaven, who is the champion of humility? It is a docile woman overflowing with the inner strength of God.

The Blessed Virgin Mary is the Queen of all the Virtues and the model to which we must all aspire. She declared, “All generations will call me blessed.” Her yes and generous consent to God’s plan bursted open the gift of new life for the world. Her yes formed Joseph into an earthly father and solidified his sanctity.

While we are not saints, we are saints in the making. Mary says yes to forming us into saints. Ask Mary to give her you her heart. When our hearts are shaped after hers, we can love Jesus perfectly.

Pope Francis spoke on the enormity of Mary in her humility. In Mary, we find invisible strength and with Jesus as our guide, we find the way to salvation:

I want to highlight this: humility is a granitic virtue. Let us think of Mary: she is always small, always without self-importance, always free of ambition. This smallness of hers is her invincible strength: it is she who remains at the foot of the cross, while the illusion of a triumphant Messiah is shattered. It will be Mary, in the days leading up to Pentecost, who will gather up the flock of disciples, who had not been able to keep vigil just one hour with Jesus, and had abandoned Him when the storm came. Brothers and sisters, humility is everything. 

It is what saves us from the Evil One, and from the danger of becoming his accomplices. And humility is the source of peace in the world and in the Church. Where there is no humility, there is war, there is discord, there is division. God has given us an example of this in Jesus and Mary, for our salvation and happiness. And humility is precisely the way, the path to salvation (May 22, 2024). 

Today is our feast day. We are saints in the making. We are called to be holy. Let us be on our way. Happy All Saints Day!