Today the
Church honors 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
