- All Saints Day

God creates out of nothing. Wonderful you say. Yes, to be sure, but he does what is still more wonderful: he makes saints out of sinners.
- Soren Kierkegaard, The Journals of Kierkegaard

(How do you feel about saints? What do they teach you about life with God?)

RV 7:2-4, 9-14;    PS 24:1BC-6;    1 JN 3:1-3;    MT 5:1-12

R. Lord, this is the people that longs to see your face.

The LORD's are the earth and its fullness;
the world and those who dwell in it.
For he founded it upon the seas
and established it upon the rivers.

Who can ascend the mountain of the LORD?
or who may stand in his holy place?
One whose hands are sinless, whose heart is clean,
who desires not what is vain.

He shall receive a blessing from the LORD,
a reward from God his savior.
Such is the race that seeks him,
that seeks the face of the God of Jacob.







The first and second reading are quite general and do not specify what it means for Christ's followers, for the Church, to be part of this transformation process. However, the Sermon on the Mount in today's Gospel is very clear in identifying who will enter the Kingdom of God, who are those who transformed the world inspired by Christ's teaching.

As we read the Sermon on the Mount let us meditate over its relevance for us, the Church, who are called to change the world through Christ's teachings. Let us pray for our Christian communities, parishes, and the Church as a whole, to transform our society, our economic systems shaped by inequalities contrary to Christ's teaching, our political systems which often favor the elite and do not sufficiently protect those at the fringes of society who are God's priority. Let us pray for and recognize international relations which reflect global disparities in wealth and power, contradicting Christ's teaching on equality and equity.

As we endeavor to change the world, we do so knowing that God is on our side, that we are marked with the "seal of the living God," and that ultimately we will "rejoice and be glad, for [our] reward will be great in heaven." On this day, the Solemnity of All Saints, we remember those who transformed the world and who are now "rejoicing ... in heaven." Their example inspires us and they accompany us through their prayer and intervention.

- by Alex Roedlach

Selected Quotes from St. John of the Cross on the Journey of the Soul to God by Contemplation

- from Dark Night of the Soul

Bk. 2, Ch. 9. #2. The affection, feelings and apprehensions of the perfect spirit (in divine union), being Divine, are of another kind and of a very different order from those that are natural. 

#5. It seems now to the soul that it is going forth from its very self with much affliction. At other times things seem strange and rare, though they are the same that it was accustomed to experience before. The soul is now becoming alien and remote from common sense and knowledge of things in order to be informed with the Divine.

- compiled by James and Tyra Arraj