All Saints and Unrecognized Saints
Revelation 7:2-4, 9-14; Psalm 24; 1 John 3:1-3; Matthew 5:1-12a
Today, we celebrate All Saints’ Day. The first reading, therefore, focuses on the saints whom John sees in heaven. In his vision, John sees an angel identifying 144,000 servants of God who have been sealed “upon their foreheads.” (Revelation 7:3) The 144,000 come from all tribes of Israel.
Then, as described in verse nine, John sees a crowd of Gentiles in heaven, “a great multitude which no man could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, ‘Salvation belongs to our God who sits upon the throne, and to the Lamb!’” (Revelation 7:9-10)
An angel explains the presence of this second group to John with: “These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” (Revelation 7:14) Ordinary blood stains clothes and does not make them white, but the blood that caused the robes to be white is the saving blood of Jesus, the Lamb of God. The washing in Jesus’s blood symbolizes Baptism, as Paul teaches, “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.”[1] (Romans 6:4)
Highlighting that the great multitude of saints that “no man could number” includes countless holy people who have never been officially acknowledged as saints, Fr. Menard reflects:
But how many are there whose eminent holiness will only be known in Heaven. People haven’t seen anything yet. I believe the greatest saints have not necessarily been canonized. The life of the soul of ones like these had been profoundly hidden with Christ in God.[2]
We must give the responsibility of this conception to the fact of having reserved the title of Saint, uniquely to those who have been recognized as such by the Church, even though they represent the smallest number in comparison with the ‘great multitude which no one could count” (Rev. 7:9). We do not have the right to bring the terminology of Scripture – this ‘divine language’ – to the narrow limitations of the Church’s language that considers as saints only those whom, with the assistance of the Holy Spirit, She has recognized as such. Why does the Church make such a selection? We can be sure that She does not want to issue ‘diplomas of holiness’; the saints would be the last ones to consider them important. She rather wants to show us models of Christianity. If, for example, the Church canonized in our century the English Chancellor, Thomas More, it is in order to tell the Christians in the world, and in particular politicians, that with this function, it is possible to live as a Christian.[3]
This man or this woman with a chronic illness and who never complains; this other who works to the limits of her strength; this man who has been suffering a long time and who perseveres in spite of his endless struggle; this layperson consecrated to God and who lives the gospel generously in the world.[4]
May the Lord Bless You All – Father Peter
[1] Brant Pitre, “All Saints Day (Year A),” catholicproductions.com.
[2] Menard, Spiritual Testament, 53.
[3] Eusebe Menard, Thirst for Love (New Hope: St. Martin of Porres, 2016), 25.
[4] Christian Rodembourg, 15 Days of Prayer with Eusebe-Henri Menard, trans. Robert Morfesi and Mary Ryan (Hyde Park: New City Press, 2011), 84. The following work was cited. Eusebe Menard, Regle de Vie (1989), vii.
