Sunday, 1st November is the great Solemnity of All Saints. On this day, the Church venerates all those known and unknown, whose virtues and efforts in this life are considered to have earned them an eternal reward from God. In doing so, we the Church on earth traditionally give thanks for their lives, consider their example, strive to emulate them, ask for their intercession in the trials of this life, and glorify God through the multitude that have gone before us, remembering that we too are all called to be saints. Veneration of saints is giving glory to God in them and through them. Their graces are God’s gift to them and their example is our hope. This feast also reminds us that while many great saints have their own feast days, there are vast numbers of others that do not. These have come from all states and walks of life: clergy and lay, married and single, humble and mighty. Today, beatifications and canonisations of people from a great variety of backgrounds and countries take place, and it is possible to form a more comprehensive view of what constitutes the universal holiness of the Church. In the early centuries, martyrs alone were venerated as saints and on this day a feast of “the Martyrs of all the Earth” was celebrated in the East in the mid-fourth century. The feast caught on in the West, especially after Pope Boniface IV dedicated the Pantheon in Rome in 610 to Saint Mary and All the Saints. Subsequently, Pope Gregory IV (d. 844) formally fixed the 1st November as the date for this feast. On Sunday, pray especially for yourself – that you will grow in holiness. A great help to this is keeping the Six Holy Habits. (Source: Portsmouth Diocese e-News) [Image: Public Domain]