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November 2, 2024Homily of Bp Paolo Martinelli for the Solemnity of All Saints, celebrated in St Joseph's parish, Abu Dhabi___________________________________________Today is a beautiful day for all those who believe in God. Today we celebrate the feast of all saints. Every day of the year we celebrate a saint, we remember them all one by one. They are the saints whose name we bear. On the day of our baptism, we received the name of a saint, and we feel their powerful protection. We willingly entrust ourselves to their intercession when we are troubled by the problems of daily life.But today we do not remember the saints individually, but we remember them all together. Today we celebrate holiness, we celebrate the communion of saints. In fact, one cannot be truly united with God if one is not united with brothers and sisters in faith. The feast of all saints reminds us that we too are called to be saints, to be united with God in love and to love one another as Jesus loved us. When we think of the saints, we must not think of heroes, distant from us and unreachable. The saints are men and women like us who have lived their vocation to holiness and have walked together towards the fullness of divine life.For this reason, the book of the Apocalypse that we heard speaks to us of this wonderful vision that the apostle John sees before him: an immense number of people who come from different nations, races, tribes, and with different languages. All of them are gathered around the Lamb, around Jesus and celebrate his victory over evil and death. They too have passed through tribulation and have reached the fullness of life in Christ.Dear faithful, looking at you today gathered around the altar I express my joy because you are a living image of this people of which the sacred scripture speaks to us. We too are a people of different peoples, united by the same baptism and nourished by the same body and blood of Christ. We are not a closed people, we are an open and hospitable people. The saints teach us to walk together.Dearest ones, as you know I have just returned from Rome, after an exciting experience of the Synod of Bishops together with Pope Francis. I can tell you with joy that now the awareness of being a synodal Church in mission is clearer in the Church, called to bring everyone the joy of the Gospel through the testimony of life changed by the grace of God. Let no one be excluded and no one be passive, all protagonists, all collaborators in the Church! We are a people made up of the community of the baptized people called to the holiness of love.The word of God pushes us to take a further step: Saint John in his letter reveals the definitive face of the saints, reveals our true face. What does it mean, to be a member among the baptized people? It means we are a people made up of the sons and daughters of God. The saints are those who allowed themselves to be seized by the love of God who calls us to participate in divine life, to be children, that is, to be wanted and loved.When we look at ourselves in the mirror every morning and ask ourselves who we really are, we must answer simply like this: I, John, I, Francis, I, Clare, I, Catherine, I, Carolina, am simply a child of God, loved with an irrevocable and eternal love. And when we look at each other, when we ask ourselves who the others are, those who live with us, in our family, at school, in the parish, we must say: you are a child of God. You are loved by God with an irrevocable and eternal love. So, the saints are the children of God, the saints are brothers and sisters to each other. We who are called to holiness are called to love one another and to welcome one another with sincere love, just as we are, as different as we are in nation, race, tribe and language; We all form the people of the children of God.Saint John also reminds us that this being children is not a static reality but a profoundly dynamic one. We are already children of God, but we are becoming more and more so every day. The love of God is transforming us. Through daily life, the daily toils, Jesus makes us more and more like him and more united among ourselves. We are a people who are children, and we hope to deepen it more and more if we are docile to the grace of God.Finally, the Gospel offers us the discourse of the Beatitudes. These words of Jesus inflame our hearts. First of all, because he reminds us that we are made for joy. God created us to be happy. But the path of this joy is different from the one that the world offers us. When are we truly happy? Is it when we wage war and want to defeat or eliminate others who disturb us; when we manage to deceive others, when through injustice we gain greater power over others, when we are rich and allow ourselves every luxury and waste? No, these things do not make us happy but slaves. If we have all these things but do not have love, we are dead in our hearts. Blessed are the poor, blessed are the meek, blessed are those who thirst for justice, blessed are the peacemakers. This is the revolution of the gospel. It is the revolution of love. Blessed is Jesus and blessed are we if we follow Jesus and try every day to live the Gospel and let ourselves be loved by him with infinite love.The feast of all saints reminds us, therefore, that we are a people of the community of the Baptized called to holiness, we are a people made up of sons and daughters of God, we are a people called to the joy of loving and being loved.May Mary Most Holy, Mother of God, and all our saints help us to live this fascinating vocation, the adventure of holiness, every day. Amen.
