Today the Church
celebrates All Saints’ Day. On this day we honor all the Saints who live now in
heaven with Jesus, His Father and the Holy Spirit. The earliest observance of
this day was a commemoration of “all the Martyrs” in the fourth century.
Later, when
Christians were free to worship according to their conscience, the Church
acknowledged other paths to sanctity besides dying for the Faith.
In the early
centuries the only criterion for sainthood was popular acclaim, even when the
bishop's approval became the final step in placing a commemoration on the
calendar. The first papal canonization occurred in 993 AD; the lengthy process
now required to prove extraordinary sanctity took shape over the past 500 years.
Today's feast honors the obscure as well as the famous—the saints each of us
have known.
“After
this I had a vision of a great multitude, which no one could count, from every
nation, race, people, and tongue.
They stood
before the throne and before the Lamb, wearing white robes and holding palm
branches in their hands....
One of the
elders said to me, ‘These are the ones who have survived the time of great
distress;
they have
washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the
Lamb.’”
-Revelation
7:9, 14
