“The glorious company of apostles praise thee.  The goodly fellowship of prophets praise thee.  The noble army of martyrs praise thee.” 

Today is a feast of our hope: the hope that holiness is not reserved just for those several remarkable figures whom we remember throughout the Church’s year, Mary and Joseph, Peter and Paul, Patrick and Augustine, God’s “prime numbers” so to speak, unique and irreducible, who distinctively represent and characterize our Faith.  Rather, while we do rightly celebrate all those great figures in the Church’s life and history today and throughout the year, we also dare to believe that the greater company of saints, most of those who now rejoice in heaven, were, and are, normal, ordinary, now largely forgotten to the world, with flesh like ours, weaknesses like ours, temptations like ours.  And they conquered.  For a saint is just a sinner who never gives up in the face of his own weakness.  See what God’s grace did to that drowsy coward Simon, or that fierce murderous Saul; they became Peter and Paul: the princes of our Faith and the pillars of the Church. 

The Lord can do the same for us, no matter what our failures might be.  He wants to do the same for us.  He will do the same for us, if we will just let him.  That is the promise of this Feast Day, that holiness is not just some distant abstract thing.  He wants us to be holy.  He wants me to be holy.  He wants you to be holy.  He’s giving us what we need to be holy.  And he wants us in heaven, saints, glorified, perfected, and healed of all sin.  He wants this Feast Day to be your Feast Day.  Now, tomorrow is All Souls’ Day: the day on which we pray for those who have died and who are still completing their journey towards heaven in the merciful experience of purgatory.  It’s a great day to remember and pray for our loved ones who have gone before.  It’s a great day to go visit the cemetery and pray there, if you can, either in general or for specific persons that you love who have passed from this life. Very likely, we hope, tomorrow, All Souls’ Day, will be our Feast Day for a while.  And we hope people will pray for us on that day in coming years and decades, and centuries, when we’re finishing up the work of getting ready for heaven.  And it’s only fair that we do our part now for those who are experiencing that process at this time.  Very likely, All Souls’ Day will be our feast day for a while.  But then, when the time is right and the Grace of God and the prayers of our fellow believers have healed us from all that stands in the way, then, today, the Feast of All Saints, will finally, gloriously, be our feast day as well. 

And so we ask God to number us among those who minister at his Throne for all eternity.   Those who rejoice with us even now, but upon another shore and in a greater light, that multitude which no man can number, whose hope was in the Word made flesh, and with whom we for evermore, please God, may be one. 

“We therefore pray thee, help thy servants, whom thou hast redeemed with thy precious blood.  Make them to be numbered with thy Saints, in glory everlasting.”