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Image: The work “All Saints’ Day” by Johann König, January 1599
Pope Francis’ Wednesday Reflection for Solemnity of All Saints
“ Holiness is a Gift and a Journey”
Dear brothers and sisters,
Today we celebrate the Solemnity of All Saints.
In the light of this feast, let us pause for a moment to reflect on holiness, especially on two characteristics of true holiness: it is a gift – it is a gift, it cannot be bought – and at the same time it is a journey. A gift and a journey.
First of all, Holiness is a gift.
Holiness is a gift of God that we have received through Baptism: if we allow it to grow, it can completely change our lives (cf. Gaudete et Exsultate, 15). The saints are not unattainable or distant heroes, but they are people like us, they are our friends, whose starting point is the same gift that we have received: Baptism. On the contrary, if we think about it, we have certainly met some, some everyday saints, some just people, some people who live the Christian life seriously, with simplicity… They are what I like to call “the saints next door,” who usually live among us.
Holiness is a gift offered to everyone for a happy life.
And by the way, when we receive a gift, what is our first reaction?
It is that we are happy, because it means that someone loves us; and the gift of holiness makes us happy because God loves us.
Every gift, however, must be welcomed, and carries with it the responsibility of a response, a “thank you”. But how do we say this thank you? It is an invitation to commit ourselves so that it does not go to waste.
All the baptized have received the same call to “preserve and perfect by their lives the holiness which we have received” (Lumen Gentium, 40).
Secondly, Holiness is a Journey
Holiness is also a journey, a journey to be made together, helping each other, united with those excellent climbing companions who are the Saints.
They are our brothers and sisters, on whom we can always count: the saints support us and, when we take the wrong path on the way, they do not fail to correct us; with their silent presence.
They are sincere friends, whom we can trust, because they want our good.
In their lives we find an example, in their prayers we receive help and friendship, and with them we bind ourselves in a bond of fraternal love.
Holiness is a journey, it is a gift.
Then we can ask ourselves: do I remember that I have received as a gift the Holy Spirit, who calls me to holiness and helps me to get there?
Do I thank the Holy Spirit for this, for the gift of holiness?
Do I feel close to the saints?
Do I speak to them, do I address them?
Do I know the story of some of them?
It is good for us to know the lives of the saints and to be moved by their examples.
And it does us so much good to turn to them in prayer.
May Mary, Queen of all saints, make us feel the joy of the gift we have received and increase in us the desire for the eternal goal.
