Homily for All Saints Day

Homily for All Saints Day

Nov. 1, 2026
Matt 5: 1-12
Rev 7: 2-4, 9-14
1 John 3: 1-3
St. Francis Xavier, Bronx

All Saints (William Vrelant)

“When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain, and after he had sat down, … he began to teach them” (Matt 5: 1-2).

We just heard the beginning of what’s called the Sermon on the Mount.  It takes up 3 chapters in Matthew’s Gospel and presents to us the new law of Christianity—a series of instructions, parables, and prayer.  The Our Father comes from this set of teachings.  It’s beautifully presented in The Chosen, season 3, episode 1.

The site where Jesus gave this sermon, according to tradition, is preserved on a hillside called the Mount of the Beatitudes overlooking the Sea of Galilee and is a place of pilgrimage.

Matthew portrays Jesus as a new Moses.  He goes up a mountain, as Moses ascended Mt. Sinai to receive the 10 Commandments and the rest of the Law directly from God.  On this mountain—really, it’s just a hillside—Jesus sits down, assuming the classic posture of a teacher.  In every cathedral you find a chair reserved for the bishop—called his cathedra, Latin for “chair”—which only he may use because he’s the supreme teacher of his diocese.  When the Pope issues his most solemn teaching on faith or morals, he speaks ex cathedra, “from the chair,” the chair of St. Peter in his case.

Today we hear the beginning of Jesus’ solemn teaching.  He begins with the Beatitudes, 9 blessings for Jesus’ disciples.  Those who practice his teachings are saints.

Today we’re celebrating “all saints.”  We recognize, honor, and celebrate many saints all year—the Blessed Virgin Mary, above all, and the apostles and other favorites like St. Francis, St. Patrick, St. Anthony, St. Therese the Little Flower, Mother Teresa, St. Ann, and of course St. Francis Xavier.  Canonized saints, however, are very few among all God’s holy ones.  The reading from the Book of Revelation speaks of “a great multitude, which no one could count, from every nation, race, people, and tongue” (7:9),who stand before the throne of God and the Lamb of God, our Lord Jesus, all of them garbed in robes “washed and made white in the Blood of the Lamb” (7:14).

Undoubtedly, you have known some of God’s holy ones, people who’ve lived the Beatitudes that are the new law of Christ, people who’ve been humble, devout, merciful, kind, clean of heart and mind, peaceable, patient in suffering.  It might have been a parish priest, a nun who taught you in school, a grandparent, a neighbor—someone whose holiness and closeness to God you easily recognized.  I’ve lived with saints among my Salesian brothers and have met others who are wives, husbands, parents “who hunger and thirst for righteousness” (Matt 5:6), i.e., to be right with God, to serve the Lord and the Lord’s people.

God has called every one of us to be among his saints.  In Baptism we were washed clean in the Blood of the Lamb, and we get a fresh rinsing when we confess our sins—and when we pray and surrender ourselves to God’s will and to his merciful love.  As St. John tells us in the 2d reading today, we’re “the children of God” who have a destiny to become even more when we complete our earthly journey and enter God’s presence to “see him as he is” and reflect more perfectly his image; “we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:1-2).

The modern civil rights movement advised those sitting in, marching, and advocating for human dignity and human rights to “keep their eyes on the prize,” borrowing that phrase from an old hymn.  That hymn and that phrase remind us to keep our eyes on the prize, which is the eternal life that God bestows on his saints—everyone who walks faithfully with Jesus toward the Kingdom of God.  Keep on walking, sisters and brothers, with your eyes on Jesus because he’s got the prize—eternal happiness.