OMELIE / Omelie EN

01 nov 2025

01/11/2025 - Solemnity of All Saints

01/11/2025 - Solemnity of All Saints

First Reading Rev 7:2-4, 9-14 from Psalm 23 Second Reading 1 Jn 3:1-3 Gospel Mt 5:1-12

This feast has its deepest meaning and origin in a word of Jesus: ‘Whoever serves me, my Father will honour’! If those who served Jesus are honoured by the Father, we too can honour them. We take example from their love and service, and we receive joy from their being honoured by the Father.

They are our brothers and sisters, and therefore the whole family draws glory from their glorified situation. They are members of the Church, the Body of Christ, and they are the members who most radiate the light that the three disciples admired on Mount Tabor, indeed, the light that shone on the face of the risen Lord. They are the fruit of the Church's witness; they are the splendour of her holiness. In simple words, we could say that the Church is a factory of saints: a reason to love her and obey her teachings without fear.

The lives of these brothers and sisters of ours are recounted in the words that Jesus spoke on the mountain before the crowds. They are the poor in spirit, the meek, the afflicted, those persecuted for the sake of righteousness, the pure of heart, the merciful, the peacemakers: they are those who enter the kingdom of heaven, or who bring it about. These words of Jesus help us to see why their lives have been and continue to be pleasing to God, and not only that, they continue to be a gift, an enrichment not only for the Church but for all humanity. On the other hand, their lives help us to understand the truest meaning of Jesus' own words. They lived his Word, and his Word is given to us by them in the form of their lived experience. They are that letter of which St Paul speaks, God's letter understood by all, even by the illiterate: ‘written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts’ (2 Cor 3:3).

I enjoy their presence in the Church; I, who limp in the spiritual life, am consoled by their fidelity, stimulated by their dedication to witnessing to the presence and truth of Jesus. Their poverty and obedience help me to take Jesus' teachings seriously and to see that I too can accept and live them. Their humility and purity of feelings and thoughts help me to be content with the love that Jesus pours out on me, without seeking it from human beings. Their patience gives me the strength and motivation to endure and to be attentive first and foremost to myself, so that the spirit of condemnation of others does not enter into me, but rather to help Jesus carry, like Simon of Cyrene, the cross of the sins of my brothers and sisters.

With them, I experience the love of the Father, who sees us and wants us as his beloved children! As children, we carry within us the joy of belonging to him and belonging to one another in him. With this joy of children, we are also witnesses of the Son, who is the centre of the heavenly assembly, the hope of all men who have come into the world by God's will.

Being witnesses of Jesus is the gift that God gives us so that our lives may have infinite meaning and value. Truly blessed are those who are witnesses of Jesus, and those who are aware of this fill their own lives and that of the Church with blessings.

Many Christians fail to experience the joy of faith because they do not know how to be witnesses of Jesus. They do not see meaning in their own lives, in their loneliness, in their sufferings, in their struggles, because they do not consider the possibility of being witnesses of Jesus. Many Christians remain slaves to blasphemous ways of acting and speaking, which scandalise children and even more so the followers of other religions, because they do not set themselves the goal of being witnesses to Jesus. Being witnesses of Jesus is a gift of the Holy Spirit, the purpose of the holy sacraments, the purpose of the struggles we endure in view of our fidelity to the Gospel and our vocation as disciples of the Lord.

Let us also serve Jesus by becoming witnesses of his presence, his truth, his cross, and we will be honoured by the Father together with all those in whom his holiness shines forth.

Thank you, Lord Jesus, for shining your light on the faces of so many of our brothers and sisters. Thank you, because in these people, weak and fragile like us, you have sown and grown your Word to manifest the Father's mercy and compassion. Thank you for keeping us in communion with them through your Holy Spirit!