Revelation 7:2–4, 9–14
1 John 3:1–3
Matthew 5:1–12a
The main motif for our celebration today is found in the title for the solemnity: “All Saints” with the accent on the first word “all.” The phrase “all of the saints” is repeated in each of the three official prayers that mark our liturgy beginning with the opening collect. We are perhaps a bit prejudiced to the second of the two words, namely “saints.” And so we start looking for models of holiness. But the liturgical texts and the scriptural readings are not so skewed. “All” is also an operative word today.
This comes to us clearly in the visions of John the seer. The seer doesn’t just see saints, he sees numbers. He sees the numbers of those marked by the seal of the living God. The number 12 is at the root of his first vision. He sees the number 12 squared and then multiplied by 1000. All of this means simply that he is not really able to count the numbers. But he is deeply impressed by these numbers. What he is seeing is the Israelite community symbolized by 12, the number of tribes. He sees the whole community of Israel in vast numbers. He sees them all and sees them marked as belonging to the living God. He sees that those who belong to God are saved. He sees all the holy ones, the saints of Israel, restored. You have to be a visionary to be able to see the whole community.
His second vision is also about numbers and this time, he says they are beyond counting. But he sees them and sees that all of them come from every nation, race, people and tongue. What does he see, then? He obviously is having a vision of all of humanity gathered before God and the Lamb. It is this vast multitude of a diverse humanity that he is trying to describe. He is trying to say he is seeing all who have been touched by the blood of the Lamb.
John the seer is giving us two visions to help us think in terms of all–the whole community, the whole of humanity touched by the life and death of the Lamb. We find it hard to see all, to see the whole. It is easier to see one, to see the individual face. It is true each one in the all is an individual with a face and a story. But today is about the crowd, the masses, the whole lot of Israelites and Jews and those of humanity for whom faith in Christ has brought about a new existence.
Today we have to step back a bit from individual holy people we may have met as exemplary and courageous in faith they may have been. Today we have to imagine ourselves as standing with all kinds of people, in all kinds of dress, who eat all kinds of food and speak languages beyond comprehension….today we are asked to see ourselves with them standing before the throne and acknowledging with them that we aer saved only by God and the blood of the Lamb. The only part of their story we need to know is that in Christ they took on a new life and remained faithful to it.
Today we remember that we are part of something much, much larger than we can imagine, see or touch. We are part of a community of men and women that stretches back in time to Moses and the garden. Members of a community that will stretch forward to a moment when we will be so transformed that like the seer John we will actually see all as God and the Lamb see all. That is our goal. We will be part of a universality reconciled to God by the blood of the Lamb. Oh blessed day, when we can see all the saints…
~ Fr. Joel Macul, OSB