Homily for All Saints – November 2025
What comes to mind when you think of the saints? Do you picture a gallery of superheroes of faith—extraordinary men and women whose holiness seems impossibly far away? Do you think the title is reserved only for an exemplary few, perched high on a spiritual pedestal?
The problem with putting the saints on a pedestal is that it might make us think we have nothing in common with them, or even worse, that we could never be like them. Nothing could be further from the truth! If we think this way, we reduce All Saints' Day to a celebration of them, and not a celebration of our own destiny.
This is fundamentally wrong. We are made of the same raw humanity they were. Today, we celebrate our ultimate calling: being a saint is our destiny! It is a possibility proven by all those before us who have lived it successfully. We should believe and say, with St. Augustine: "If them, ...why not me too?"
Imagine making a definitive decision right now to become a saint and committing to do everything in your power to allow God to transform you. What would be different when you leave the church after Mass today? What would need to change? What immediate re-prioritizing would need to happen in your life?
Always Be United to Jesus
One of the importances of the Church recognising saints is that they inspire us to become saints, and the example of their lives and their writings and words are recognised as teaching us and helping us to become saints. Think of St. Carlo Acutis, recently canonized by Pope Leo XIV. The fuss about Carlo is that he is a saint for our time! He's known as the saint in track shoes and jeans—born in 1991 and died at age 15 in 2006.
Carlo, even as a teenager, understood the universal call to holiness taught by the Second Vatican Council. He once said: "Everyone is born as an original, but many people end up dying as photocopies." Holiness is the path of being an "original," not a copy. We should strive to be our authentic selves, not conforming to society's expectations.
He was convinced that we all can become saints if we daily commit to letting God make us holy. His life program, which he committed to at his First Holy Communion, was simple: "Always be united to Jesus." Carlo called the Eucharist his "highway to heaven." Every time we receive Holy Communion, we are united to Jesus—the source of all holiness. We can ask for the grace to stay in communion with him, to stay united to him.
Carlo showed that sainthood is achieved through ordinary actions and a deep faith life, not just extraordinary deeds. His desire to please God in everything demonstrated that this path is open to everyone. He lived out this desire by attending daily Mass and deeply believing in the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. He was dedicated to prayer and the sacraments.
Carlo also understood the call to be a missionary in our immediate context. He used his computer skills to create an exhibition of Eucharistic miracles, sharing his faith with the world. When diagnosed with leukaemia, he accepted his suffering with profound courage, offering it to God as a prayer for the Pope and the Church. His doctors were struck by his strength and compassion.
Faithful to God in Ordinary Circumstances
A saint is simply someone who is holy. We become holy by being faithful to God in the very ordinary circumstances of life—our family, our work, our community. Your immediate context is the means God has given you to become a saint.
The old catechism taught that God made us to know, love, and serve Him in this world, and to be happy with Him forever in the next. That simple truth is our call to be saints. We were created for an eternal love relationship with God. Perhaps we need to convince ourselves that we want to go to heaven. And once we have done that, we need to live in such a way that we will achieve that goal. We need to live according to that purpose already now.
The greatest tragedy then, is not to be a saint. The Lord wants us to choose greatness, not to settle for a bland, mediocre existence. As St. Pier Giorgio Frassati, another young saint, said: "To live without faith, without a heritage to defend, without sustaining the truth in a continuous struggle, is not to live but to get by. And we must never just get by; we must live." Remember, Pope Benedict XVI put it simply: "The world offers you comfort, but you were not made for comfort, you were made for greatness."
The first reading today, from Revelation, gives us a glimpse of our destination, a snapshot of the life of heaven with all the saints. In this vision there are a great multitude of people from every nation, tribe, and language. They are dressed in white robes and are participating in a heavenly liturgy, giving praise and worship to God. Our Eucharist today is a foretaste and preparation for this destiny. The Eucharist is the food of saints.
The second reading from the First Letter of St John speaks of the present and the future: St John repeats twice that we are God's children already but says what we will be in the future we do not know, except that we will be like Jesus. St John goes on to explain what is needed to be like Jesus in the future: We must purify ourselves as Jesus is pure. In other words, we must strive for holiness.
The Identity Card of the Saints
The Beatitudes in the Gospel for today, give us the programme for holiness. Pope Francis used to refer to the Beatitudes as the "identity card of the saints," and they are meant to be our identity card as Christians who are saints in the making. When Pope St John Paul beatified Pier Giorgo Frassati in 1990 he declared him to be a "man of the beatitudes." You see, each beatitude is a step on the journey to being saints: poverty of spirit, mercy, meekness, righteousness, purity of heart, peace-making, and the willingness to suffer persecution.
These Beatitudes challenge our selfishness, our complacency, and our pride. This teaching of Jesus should unsettle us, challenge us and demand a real change in the way we live. In and of ourselves we are poor in spirit, and we need God. Nothing other than God can satisfy our deepest longing and desires. The saint is the one who has realised that the pursuit of worldly pleasures and material wealth is not the source of our happiness.
The mourning of saints is about having compassion for those who suffer, and the call to be meek is the opposite of pride and being filled with self- importance. Saints do not seek honour and glory for themselves. Saints have simple, humble hearts. Saints desire and work for justice for the poor and the weak; they speak for those who have no voice.
Saints are merciful. Having experienced God's mercy, they are merciful to others; they give, help, and serve; they forgive and understand the weaknesses of others. Saints have pure hearts, hearts that are undivided, hearts that are set on the one thing necessary. Saints are peacemakers. They avoid being the cause of conflict and misunderstanding and work for healing and understanding between others.
Today, let us decide to give God permission to turn us into saints.
